Movies: The Official "Movie of the Week" Club Thread III

[Ralph Spoilsport]

My next pick will be...oh, let's say Blue Velvet. We haven't done Lynch in this thread for a while, not since I've been around.

 

[Jevo]

Winchester (2005) dir. Jeremy Blake

I've been postponing writing a review for this, hoping I could find a way to pad out my review to a little more than "I didn't get it".

Watching Winchester is an experience. There's no narrative, there are themes, but it's a bit too abstract for my taste. The experience however is not optimal when watched on laptop screen. It's partially my fault for watching it on my laptop, but I wouldn't have been able to find a big enough screen to do it justice anyway. It's made to be watched in a gallery on a big screen, and I'm sure the experience is wildly different when watched in such a setting compared to my laptop. I'd really wish I could watch it like that. But right now it feels like I've googled a famous painting and looked at the painting through there. I can appreciate the artistry and skill involved. I can even infer some things about it. But I can't really feel it, and art needs to be felt.

 

[kihei]

The Lady Vanishes (1938) Directed by Alfred Hitchcock

World War I is over but the Great Powers know a second one is on the way. On a train in continental Europe which has been temporarily stopped because of an avalanche, an intrigue is unfolding that could have devastating consequences for England and her allies. When a train, bound for the French coast and then England, is delayed due to an avalanche, the passengers spend the night at a hotel in the mountains waiting impatiently and hungrily. Unbeknownst to nearly all of them, a dangerous game is already afoot where spies try to outwit one another, no matter the cost. After the train resumes its journey, Miss Foy, an old lady and former music teacher, suddenly disappears. The trouble is only Iris Henderson, a footloose and fancy free young woman, realizes that she is missing. However, no one else on the train has ever seen the woman, and Iris begins to question her sanity. Help is on the way in the form of Gilbert Redman, a good-natured Englishman, who is at least willing too hear Iris out. Together the two sleuths try to figure out the mystery, that is, if there is any mystery at all.

One can call Alfred Hitchock movies a lot of things: suspenseful, thrilling, tense, technically perfect, imaginative, fun, ingenious, all high forms of praise. But usually Hitchcock's work is not necessarily synonymous with charm and delight. The Lady Vanishes is that rare exception. It seems as Hitchcock is himself on a European holiday in this one. Yes, the stakes are high, but even the villain is a relatively likable chap who takes his eventual defeat with good grace and humour. Like all Hitchcock's movies, clever suspense is at the heart of the work. But even here, there is something more playful rather than evil going on. How do you convince people that you are right when they all think you are wrong? As cards continue to stack up against Iris, though, the audience is at least on her side. We know something suspicious has occurred even if we can't figure why an old music teacher who seems harmless as a puppy is at the centre of the turmoil. When Iris meets Gilbert, they don't hit it off very well, but, unlikely heroes though they are, they have the pluck and intelligence to figure out the crime. The result is not the nail-biting suspense of Vertigo, The Birds, Strangers on a Train, Notorious, or Psycho but rather the more imaginative twists and turns of North by Northwest and To Catch a Thief. I've always thought of The Lady Vanishes represented the best Agatha Christie story that she never wrote. The movie shares many of her defining characteristics: a very clever plot, a plucky British girl and a dependable, resourceful guy whose pooling of resources leads to romance; twists that one doesn't see coming; and a resolution that is both surprising and pleasing. In short, The Lady Vanishes is closer to a cordial than to a rare scotch, more of a dessert than a main course. But that doesn't make it any less enjoyable to behold.

As for Hitchcock, he is one director for whom it is impossible to disengage form and content. He seems to think of movies structurally. Complicated plots might be one thing, but lots of movies have those. Hitchcock seems to envision his stories in terms of pure audience manipulation, and he is a magician on this score. He always seems conscious first and foremost of how to structure and edit his works so that maximum suspense is created along with an element of wit and surprise that has everything to do with knowing how to put his movies together. His approach to suspense is creative and often incredibly difficult to pull off (his making the action in Rope, shot in real time, appear to be a single long take, or restricting himself to a ridiculously confined space in Lifeboat). He appears to love to give himself challenges, and he possesses the confidence that only comes with complete technical mastery of the grammar of film. Few directors in movie history have entertained so many over such a long period of time. And few suspense directors have ever made so many suspense movies that many want to see again and again, a testimony to both the depth of his imagination as well as his artistic virtuosity.

 

[kihei]

My next pick will be Fellini's Nights of Cabiria (1957)

 

[Pranzo Oltranzista]

Winchester (2005) dir. Jeremy Blake

I've been postponing writing a review for this, hoping I could find a way to pad out my review to a little more than "I didn't get it".

Watching Winchester is an experience. There's no narrative, there are themes, but it's a bit too abstract for my taste. The experience however is not optimal when watched on laptop screen. It's partially my fault for watching it on my laptop, but I wouldn't have been able to find a big enough screen to do it justice anyway. It's made to be watched in a gallery on a big screen, and I'm sure the experience is wildly different when watched in such a setting compared to my laptop. I'd really wish I could watch it like that. But right now it feels like I've googled a famous painting and looked at the painting through there. I can appreciate the artistry and skill involved. I can even infer some things about it. But I can't really feel it, and art needs to be felt.

Can't completely agree with the absence of narrative here. There's no articulation of a story, but there's still a "story" being proposed. That story only exist through intertextual perambulations, and will be completely void to a spectator who has no knowledge of the references, but there's strong indications throughout the film - first with the title, second with the image of the house - and then more subtle ones, with the shadowy gunmen as spectres, the Rorschach test, the american flag. Intellectual curiosity should be enough to get the spectator to what he needs in order to read something of a narrative in there.

I posted my comments on the film way earlier, but I'll again suggest to watch this amazing TV documentary as a companion to Blake's film (Mrs. Winchester's House, 1963 - never heard of it before, but that to me is close to a masterpiece - 9/10):

 

[KallioWeHardlyKnewYe]

The Lady Vanishes
HItchcock (1938)
“There has been no English lady here.”

The Lady Vanishes is a bit of a play in three distinct acts — the first 30 minutes strands and crams our key players in a mountainside inn, the second 30 minutes the mystery occurs, the final 30 is a bit of a set piece. Roughly. There’s young Iris eager to get home to her fiancé. There’s GIlbert, a brash and rather noisy musician. There’s Caldecott and Charters, a pair of English chaps who only really want the cricket score. There’s Mrs. Froy, a governess. And assorted others —a bickering couple, a doctor, a magician, a stern faced old grump of a woman. Iris and Mrs. Froy strike up an instant kinship. But at some point as the train rolls, Froy disappears. IF she was ever even there. Only one person will listen to Iris. Gilbert, who already has irritated her to high heaven, (mostly) believes her though his motives may be more in his pants than his head.

We get a bit of a skewed Agatha Christie mystery here. Sure there’s some whodunit for a stretch, and a bit of was anything even done, but on top of that there’s also mystery about why certain peoples aren’t being helpful. We too think we saw them see the lady, right? Are we crazy too? While some of the passengers are engaged in the conspiracy actively, others passively contribute pretty much due to their classic Englishness. Not my business. Don’t want to interfere. Don’t want to derail ones own plans. It’s really fabulous pre-WWII commentary tucked into an entertaining yarn. One of the joys is that the is-she or isn’t-she is toyed with but not too much. We know Froy’s real and Iris does too. Hitchcock here adhering to his own famed thoughts on suspense versus surprise. But this is the key that opens up so much more mystery. I’m reminded of Flightplan, a Jodie Foster flick from a while back that takes this concept and puts it on a plane with a kid (right down to the name on a foggy window). That’s much more of an “is she crazy?” And that feels limiting.

I do have a complaint. The final third, post-reveal turns into a bit too much of an action movie for me. Brains give way to brawn and I much prefer all that comes before as opposed to what comes later. The reveal and resolution are fine. The twerpy husband gets his comeuppance. Everything gets wrapped in a pretty nice bow right down to Iris deciding to leave her poor, unseen fiancé at the train station.

It's all good, sugary fun though.

 

[Jevo]

The Lady Vanishes (1938) dir. Alfred Hitchcock

Iris Henderson (Margaret Lockwood) arrives at a small inn in the small European country of Bandrika with two friends. Iris is on her way home to England to marry a man of proper stature, but whom she doesn't appear too interested. However her trip has been delayed due to an avalanche blocking the railway line. The inn is full of stranded railway passengers including Charters and Caldicott, a pair of English cricket enthusiasts who desperately hope to return to England to see the Test match. Miss Froy an older English governess returning home. Mr. and Mrs. Todhunter, a secretive English couple. And Gilbert Redman (Michael Redgrave), a charming English ethnomusicologist who gets on the bad side of Iris for playing music and having natives folk dancing in his room above Iris'. The next day they all board the train bound for England. On the station Iris attempts to give some glasses to Miss Froy which she dropped, but ends up getting hit by a falling flower pot aimed at Miss Froy. On the train she passes out but wakes up in a compartment together with Miss Froy and some locals. Iris and Miss Froy head for the dining cart where they encounter Charters and Caldicott. After dining Iris falls asleep, but when she wakes up Miss Froy is gone, and no one remembers seeing her. Charters and Caldicott doesn't want to risk delaying the train further. The Todhunters doesn't want to risk it being exposed that the woman isn't actually Mrs. Todhunter, but a mistress. Gilbert is the only who believes Iris and tries to help her find Miss Froy.

Hitchcock's films aren't lacking in wit, but The Lady Vanishes is probably his wittiest, with a dearth of fun supporting characters. Each with their own selfish reasons for not remembering seeing Miss Froy. Which is quite convenient for the Bandrika spies trying to abduct her, as well as the movie. Charters and Caldicott are particularly great. I find their chemistry and banter very funny, and their ironic ending where they arrive, just to find out the Test match has been postponed is great. Speaking of chemistry, Margaret Lockwood and Michael Redgrave also have great chemistry together. They play off each other well, and there's just the right amount of sexual tension between them from their first scene together. They are a joy to watch.

Because of the wittiness of the movie, and the fun supporting characters, who are perhaps not really believable as real people. It's not the Hitchcock thriller with most tension. At least I have a hard time really feeling the tension and getting into the movie in a way where I have doubts about how it's going to end. But the movie makes up for it by being fast paced and entertaining. So I don't miss it. The movie is just somewhat different from other Hitchcock movies in the same genre.

The movie was made during the build up to WWII, and references to this time and British temperament can be found in the movie. The British are proper gentlemen, who fight like proper gentleman, no trickery, but honuorable fighting, except for Gilbert. The opposition doesn't have such reservations. When one of the Brits tries to surrender with the white flag he gets shot. A week before the movie premiered in London, Neville Chamberlain had returned to Britain after negotiations with Germany, declaring "peace for our time". Chamberlain was also trying to negotiate with someone who had different ideas about being proper and honourable. Nothing more than a coincidence, but funny nonetheless. The Brits survive when they run away instead of fighting. Of course a proper gentleman doesn't run away from a fight, but desperate times for call for desperate measures.

 

[Jevo]

Wendy and Lucy (2008) dir. Kelly Reichardt

Wendy (Michelle Williams) is a young woman who is travelling to Alaska. She has lost her home and her job. Desperate she has heard that jobs are easy to get in Alaska, so she has decided to spent her last money on going there. All she owns is the clothes on her back, her car, and her dog Lucy. Wendy and Lucy get stranded in a small town in Oregon when Wendy's car breaks down. Wendy attempts to shoplift some dog food in a grocery store, but gets apprehended. She is taken to the police station with Lucy still tied up in front of the grocery store. When Wendy returns many hours later Lucy is gone. She now has to find Lucy, as well as figure if she can get her car repaired, or just made into a working state. She doesn't get much help or sympathy from anyone. Only the security guard at the parking lot where her car broke down is sympathetic to her, and even helps her out a bit.

A short glimpse in the life of Wendy, we don't know much about her life before she came to this small town in Oregon, the only thing we know is that it hasn't been easy, and now with the great recession coming jobs are impossible to find in most places. And we don't know what will happen to her afterwards. We can only guess, and her future doesn't look bright, it looks even meeker than it did at the start, something Wendy probably didn't even dare to contemplate being possible. When you are as down as Wendy, even the smallest thing will send you tumbling down even further. So when her car breaks down, she knows she might not have enough money to get food for herself for all the trip to Alaska. That's okay, she can starve. But she won't let Lucy starve, because Lucy is an innocent prisoner in Wendy's life, but she can't afford dog food either. So she makes the decision to steal food for her. But as we see, one bad thing often leads to another, and once this disaster starts rolling Wendy can't seem to stop it, and not matter what she does everything just gets continually worse. It is expensive being poor, and that is especially true for Wendy right now.

Wendy and Lucy is a haunting look into a woman not even looking for a better life, she's just looking for a life. Kelly Reichardt does not use music or other tricks to manipulate our feelings. But I was feeling Wendy for almost all of the movie. It is a "terrible" experience, even if I am just feeling a fraction of the dread that Wendy is feeling. It's simply an amazingly well crafted movie. A lot of credit goes to Michelle Williams as well. She is just great. She has a lot of great performances in her career, but this might be her best. Wendy is an very tough role, because Wendy probably most of all just wants to breakdown, so she can lie down and die. But she doesn't, she just about manages to keep herself together for Lucy. But all of her emotions are just below the surface. Williams has to show just enough of this sea of emotions, but it has to be reined in extremely tight to work in this film. Because this is a slow neo-realist film, if you show even a hint of melodrama it's not going to work. And she doesn't.

 

[Jevo]

My next pick is Pan's Labyrinth.

 

[kihei]

Wendy and Lucy (2009) Directed by Kelly Reichardt

Wendy and Lucy are two strays, one human, one canine. Wendy is passing through some small Oregon town when her car breaks down on the way to Alaska. She is hellbent on going to Alaska hoping to start a new life as her present one hasn't been that promising. We don't learn much about her, but it does seem she might have a strained relationship with her family. The movie is simply about a couple of frustrating days in her life trying to find her lost pooch Lucy. She is harassed by a seemingly threatening stranger in the woods. befriended by a kindly security guard, and given advice by a non-threatening auto mechanic. Not much else happens, though the ending is two parts sad and one part hopeful. Director Kelly Reichardt has a range that goes from minimalism to slow cinema. For many critics, that's not much of a range. When Wendy and Lucy was first released it received strong positive reviews in addition to some highly critical ones: Wendy and Lucy is too slow; it's like watching paint dry; nothing much happens; not enough backstory; too many dull moments, and on and on. In truth Wendy and Lucy is not the kind of movie one expects from an American director. However, Reichardt has the courage of her convictions and for those with patience and an attention span, the film provides many rewards. First and foremost is the performance by Michelle Williams as Wendy. For starters, she looks the part, young, skinny, forlorn, waif-like. Williams makes Wendy appear very human. In subtle ways, it is a very physical performance, and Wendy's physical reactions are exactly what Reichardt wants us to dwell on because, minus much of a backstory, Williams is our only real source of information about Wendy. Through facial expressions and body language Williams tells us all we need to know about what Wendy is feeling. Whether something mildly good happens to Wendy or, more often, something frustrating or challenging, Williams communicates her character's inner reaction without muss or fuss but very convincingly. Wendy has few observable skills; she may be impulsive (Alaska?); there is much in her life to be uncertain about. Reichardt presents her with lots of little problems to solve. All of these emotions are translated to Wendy's face and slender figure. Williams is as subtle as Reichardt in her own way. No cheap emotional tricks for her, Wendy is an average girl in a bad spot, but not a thoroughly hopeless one. While there is nothing zesty and can-do about her, she communicates a low-grade pluck beneath the surface. She is not in a good spot, but she realizes it is up to her to get herself out of it. She seems very real and very human and that is Reichard's art.

While Wendy is front and centre, Reichardt presents a portrait of small-town American life as well. There are several vivid cameo performance that, regardless of duration, leave their mark on the movie. Most of the people she runs into are decent, down-to-earth people. One over-zealous, moralistic grocery clerk to the contrary, the townspeople, except for the kindly security guard, don't go greatly out of their way to help her, but they do their job, and maybe just a little bit more on her behalf. A worker at an animal pound keeps in touch about Lucy; an auto mechanic gives her some good advice and a bit of a break; kindly people seem to be looking after her dog. Nothing eccentric and nothing that much out of the ordinary (that's the point), but she is treated with decency by most. They may not be able to help her much but they realize that she is basically a good person in a tough spot. No, not a whole lot happens, but a believable and almost effortlessly powerful story is told about a girl who we should respect, too.

 

[Ralph Spoilsport]

Guess who got a smashing toy train set for Christmas? Young Sir Alfred, and it's jolly good fun to watch him play with it. The Lady Vanishes gets good mileage from exploiting British europhobia--first to comic effect, then to creepy paranoid fear, finally pulling into the station as a screwball romance. The first half hour focusses on introducing us to Charters and Caldicott, a dry comedy duo where both play the "straight man", and their hopeless attempts to cope in a foreign land without compromising their stuffy English decorum: maintaining dignity and a stiff upper lip as they try to make a meal out of the last piece of cheese or a bed out of the last room in the hotel (the maid's room, but there's no funny business apart from their uncomfortable awkwardness and eyebrow-raising misunderstandings). Things stop being funny however when a streetcorner serenader is inexplicibly strangled by an unseen attacker. Actually, that part IS funny in a macabre way, but we don't know at the time that it's not supposed to be. The Lady Vanishes shifts gears thereafter and becomes a mystery thriller. Charters and Caldicott step into the background (they would reprise the roles in later films) as Iris and Gilbert take over the plot with their attempts to find an elderly lady friend who has vanishes mysteriously while onboard their train.

Spoiler alert: the lady is actually a spy who's been captured and is to be murdered after being smuggled off the train disguised as a patient wrapped in bandages. Why they don't just throw her from the train, I don't know. Perhaps this is where we get the 007 tradition of killing the British spy in some needlessly complicated elaborate manner that ensures rescue and escape. The lady actually vanishes twice--the second time is when she's making a run for the border, the old bitty dashing through the woods like an Olympian. The Lady Vanishes makes fun at the expense of starchy English manners but it also celebrates English pluck, something they would need lots of in the years ahead.

 

[KallioWeHardlyKnewYe]

Wendy and Lucy
Reichardt (2008)
“I’m just kinda passing through.”

Wendy is a drifter on her way to a new life in Alaska where she can earn a living in relative anonymity. Her lone companion in this journey is Lucy, her dog. They’re living out of her car. While at a stopover in a small Oregon town, she’s waylaid by a series of misfortunes — her car dies, she’s busted shoplifting and, worse of all, Lucy disappears during her few hours at the local jail. She’s confronted not just with the indifference of others to her plight, but also practical challenges of trying to be off the grid. It might be nice to not be found, except at those times when one needs to be found. A kindly security guard warms up to her to help her out. We get an inevitable bittersweet ending. Lucy is located and safe with a foster owner. But the experience has shown Wendy that her life as it is might not be best for her dog. She hops a train to her uncertain future, leaving her only companion behind to what she hopes is a better life.

There’s a procedural aspect to all of this. Here’s an event that happens. How does this character of limited means resolve the issue? Cruel practicalities. A woman with no phone, no address can’t even be contacted for jobs let alone in emergencies like when a shelter might locate her dog. There’s a compiling effect as well. Small misfortunes begat larger ones.

There’s an interesting morality here too. No one is really wrong. We don’t want to see Wendy punished for shoplifting, but she did shoplift. Though the trauma that results is a punishment far greater than the crime. We want the garage owner to have a magic solution, but he doesn’t. He cuts her a break on the tow. Characters perhaps aren’t as caring or humane as we might want or hope, but that’s life. There’s disregard and dismissiveness. But everyone here has their own story and their own ways life has kicked them down as well.

We don’t learn much about Wendy. She’s from Indiana and she has a least occasional contact with her brother-in-law and sister. We don’t know why she’s running only that she is. It’s not much to work with, but Michelle Williams makes the most of it and then some. It’s a moving and understated performance of a woman who is only barely holding together but isn’t going to outwardly show any of that. It’s all below the surface. There isn’t anything dramatic about her performance. It’s natural and believable and unvarnished but in a real way as opposed to the very actorly “look at me I’m playing a poor and ugly person!”

Reichardt quietly remains one of the U.S.’s most interesting filmmakers, a creator of focused character studies of Americans living very specfic lives. Her movies are disciplined in scope but always feel loose in execution, almost ambling and documentary like.

 

[Spring in Fialta]

I'm going to have to check out for a little while. My wife is growing more serious about learning french so we'll be going on a french movie binge for the next while and knowing my habits, this will leave me way behind in this thread. I'll be back at a later date but Friday will be my last pick (or you can skip it) for the next while. Cheers!

 

[Ralph Spoilsport]

I'm going to have to check out for a little while. My wife is growing more serious about learning french so we'll be going on a french movie binge for the next while and knowing my habits, this will leave me way behind in this thread. I'll be back at a later date but Friday will be my last pick (or you can skip it) for the next while. Cheers!

Adieu...maybe we'll save the French movies for when you come back...(or maybe not!).

But still on for Friday.

 

[Ralph Spoilsport]

A little girl looking for her lost puppy…must be a tearjerker, right? With a wholesome, heartwarming ending? Well, not quite. Wendy isn't a little girl anymore; she's at least old enough to drive, if barely. And Lucy's not a puppy any more, they've been through some times together. Such as this road trip out west to seek their fortune...the American Dream, right? Well, not quite...the American dream comes true for only one of them.

Wendy And Lucy is a movie that makes me want to be kinder to people. If that alone doesn't make it great art, then what more does it have to do? It's great something. Wendy is the ultimate underdog, and who doesn't cheer for the underdog? Next to her even the clean-cut grocery clerk with a passion for law and order appears to be a villain. But what makes Wendy and Lucy so deeply moving is its realism. It elicits our compassion naturally. This isn't the American Dream, that's obvious. But this isn't the American nightmare either. Although Wendy is vulnerable, and although she does encounter some shady characters and scary dudes, the tragedy that might have been expected in a more sensational version of Wendy's story never happens. She doesn't end up in hospital, or in jail. She doesn't get robbed, assaulted or exploited because of her circumstances. There's no one for her to get revenge upon. She just survives, moves on out of town without becoming a poster girl for the marginal victims of capitalism.

This is the American reality found in the outskirts of town... not quite the jungle, not quite the good life either. Everybody stuck in a state of in between. Half-hearted. Indifference is practically a third character in the movie. Most people are willing to lend a helping hand, but only to a point, if it doesn't put them to too much inconvenience. The parking lot security guard is willing to give Wendy's car a push...but only to the property line. He eventually becomes something of a hero, and it just goes to show that people are basically good at heart. It just takes some persistence to dust away layers of indifference to get to that heart. Wendy and Lucy sure got to mine.

 

[KallioWeHardlyKnewYe]

Friday
Gray (1995)
“It’s Friday. You ain’t got no job and you ain’t got shit to do.”

Craig just lost his job (on his day off). He’s not particularly motivated to get back into the workforce at the moment. His buddy Smokey shows up, offering to help him smoke his blues away. It’s going to be a long day. Smokey is smoking his own stash, which means he doesn’t have the money to pay his supplier. Meanwhile, neighborhood bully Deebo keeps popping up like a mobile landmine ready to explode upon everyone within close radius. There’s women troubles too. Craig’s woman is an angry, jealous type, quick to mistake even the most minor interactions as a threat to her territory. He’s kinda got eyes for Debbie anyway. Craig and Smokey make their way through the day (well, actually the mostly sit on the front porch and observe). But the twin pressures of Big Worm and Deebo eventually catch up to them. Craig is forced to confront the bully. And in a surprisingly genuinely poignant moment, he reflects on his dad’s advice and decides to answer with fists (well, and a brick and a trash can) rather than a gun. The neighborhood is safe. At least for that Friday.

Friday is a hang. A day in the life. It’s the ying to the yang at the time of Menace II Society and Boyz in the Hood (also featuring Ice Cube). It felt like a welcome shift at the time too (still today as well). Not a knock on those gut punch dramas, but it was nice to see a different approach to the same community and same issues. It’s lighter undoubtedly, but not fully light. Drive bys, gun violence and violence against women all are treated seriously here about the jokes about shitting and smoking weed.

It’s still quite funny. Tucker in particular crafts a distinct character here (one it might be said he’d keep playing versions of in future movies ...) with his rubbery facial expressions his pitchy, modulating voice. John Witherspoon has a couple inspired line readings as well, though I have to say his chewing and teeth sucking mannerisms kinda gross me out every time. Memorable choice though. RIP.

More than anything, I think I like the community aspect to it. Small characters, including neighbors, local workers and other layabouts for the most part all make impressions with their look and/or a few lines of dialogue. Feels like a lived-in, well-realized world and that familiarity drives a lot of the comedy. Well, that and weed.

I would be remiss if I didn’t say praise be to Ice Cube and Chris Tucker who clearly have smoked weed before and know how to play it on film. I’m a broken record on this, but one of my biggest, weirdest acting pet peeves is actors playing drunk or high who clearly have never been drunk or high in their lives. Definitely not an issue here.

 

[Jevo]

Friday (1995) dir. F. Gary Gray

Craig (Ice Cube) just got fired on his day off, however you manage to do that. Now it's friday and he has to find a job. Or at least his father and mother thinks so. Craig is less enthusiastic about the prospect. So he hangs out out front his family's house with his friend Smokey (Chris Tucker). Smokey, as his name suggest, is quite the pot head, and he has some good weed that they smoke together. Only problem is Smokey forgot to say that it was some weed he was supposed to sell for a drug dealer. Now the dealer wants $200 for the weed, or else he'll come round to kill Smokey and Craig by 10 PM. Despite them not having close to $200 between them. It's not a fact that seem to scare them a whole lot, despite knowing how dangerous the drug dealer can be.

I have never seen Friday before now, and I think that's going to affect my view on the film. Because I'm not sure it has aged particularly well. Everything about it feels very 90s. From how it looks to the type of comedy it is. It's not a style I'm particularly fond of, and a lot of the jokes fall flat for me. But if I had watched it back when it initially came out, maybe I would have liked it more.

Friday is in no way a great technical achievement in any way. But it's not something that its fans care a lot about anyway. It didn't become a cult classic because of how it looks. Rather it became a cult classic because it's one of the first films of its kind, and still one of the few. It's a slightly rose tinted view at life in the hood. It doesn't dismiss that there's drugs and crime. But it focuses on the love and fun there is there as well. That probably makes it relatable in a good way for people from that environment, something they are seldom allowed to feel in the cinema.

I'm not particularly impressed by Friday. But I don't think anyone involved would care, because I'm white middle class in a far away country, as far from the type of person this movie was made for as possible.

 

[kihei]

Friday (1995) Directed by Gary Gray

Actually I forgot I watched this. Literally went in and out of my head in a matter of seconds. Yeah, I suppose the guys become somehow a bit more likable toward the end, but toilet humour, really? Chris Tucker has a single shtick and I hate it. Other than that, I remember nothing of significance about the movie.

 

[Jevo]

Blow out (1981) dir. Brian de Palma

Jack (John Travolta) is a sound technician on bad low budget films. His director doesn't like the wind noises used in the movie they are editing. So Jack goes out to record some new ones in a park at night. While he is recording a car comes down the parkway, has a blow out and crashes into the river. Jack jumps into the river and finds a desperate young woman in the car, Sally. He just barely brings her out alive. At the hospital Jack learns that governor, and favourite for the presidency, George McRyan was also in the car and was killed. Jack with his keen ear, distinctly remembers hearing two bangs, though the police seem little interested in that fact. With the help of a published series of a stills recorded by a local sleazebag who just so happened to have a camera pointed at the road at the time of the accident. Jack is able to conclude for sure that the car tire was shot instead of having a simple blow out. That is dangerous information however, as McRyans killer is onto Jack and Sally, and he has no reservations about killing again.

Blow Outs biggest problem is that it's a remake of two better films. It's very directly, and with reference in the title, a remake of Antonioni's Blow Up, reviewed here many years ago. But it's also somewhat inspired by Coppola's The Conversation, but here it's more borrowing the gimmick of unravelling a conspiracy from a sound recording. So why see Blow Out, when it's been done before and better? Well, for starters it doesn't mean Blow Out is a bad film, it just means I've been avoiding it as a "lesser remake" until now, and I'm normally not that attracted to de Palma. And I have to admit, I was too harsh on Blow Out before having even seen it. I quite enjoyed it, and despite borrowing the frame from Blow Up, it manages to be it's own thing, and thank God for that. Blow Up is probably the epitome of the swinging sixties on film, and you couldn't make a movie like that in 81, especially not in America. Blow Out is more American and probably more traditional in how it tells the story from how I remember Blow Up. Of course being more American requires a grand conspiracy involving the presidency, which I'm not sure the story really needed. Luckily that part doesn't take up a lot of space in the movie, so I quickly forgot about it. Most of the time it's just Jack and his paranoia, Sally, and the murderer, and with those three there's a really good mystery thriller. At times almost Hitchcock like.

There's no denying that de Palma has talent, even if I'm not normally his biggest fan, and I think he puts it on display here. Particularly the scenes of Jack cutting and editing his recording to get the two bangs more distinct, and listening over and over, and the scene of him putting it together with the film recording are great. It's very well edited and has great cinematography. There's also great sound design with all the mechanical noises of the apparatuses. Like the clicking sounds for starting, and stopping, and the whirring when the tape is being rewinded. It serves as a rhythm in the scenes and makes it seem like Jack is an artist performing. For a film about a sound technician it would be bad if this part wasn't great. Those scenes with Jack working is really what makes the film for me, they are quite special. The rest of the film is well made, but there is not much which makes it stand out, but those scenes do.

 

[KallioWeHardlyKnewYe]

Blow Out
De Palma (1981)
“God that scream is terrible.”

POV from a man, peering into a house filled with many comely and scantily clad co-eds. He moves from window to window leering, stalking. He makes his way into the house, into a room, he rips a shower curtain open and the young woman behind it scream in terror ... sorta. The scream is a comedic caterwauling and suddenly we’re in a screening room. It’s only a movie. And it isn’t the movie we’re watching. At least not yet.

Jack is a soundman for a shclocky movie producer. He goes out one night to record some new sounds — wind, birds, night noises. But he gets more than he bargained for when he hears and witnesses a car accident. A tire blows and a car flies into the river. He jumps into action and saves Sally, the women in the car, but can’t help the man. At the hospital, we learn the man was the PA Governor and the favorite to win the upcoming presidential election. Jack’s keen ears, however, didn’t hear an accident. He heard not one, but two explosions. This is onlly about the first 15 minutes of the movie - a remarkably efficient set-up. From here we spin into classic conspiracy movie world. Jack, with the help of Sally, builds his case while multiple interests work against him including a sleazy photographer, a somewhat indifferent police force and most notably Burke, a Nixonian-plumber-fixer operating for unseen power brokers. In the end Jack gets the most minor of victories. He kills Burke, but he’s too late to save Sally. The truth is at the bottom of a river, never to be revealed. But in a tragic bit of self-flaggelation he does get his scream, taking Sally’s last moments of life and dubbing it over that poor dumb co-ed.

The opening of Blow Out alone is as conscise a summation of Brian De Palma as there may be. Self-aware, voyueristic. You’re always in a movie with De Palma (and sometimes movies within movies). I haven’t experience much middle ground when it comes to thoughts on De Palma. Detractors like to say he’s just a recycler/regurgitator of other, better work, namely Hitchcock, though in this specific case Antonioni’s Blow Up as well. This has never bothered me. When he’s on, I think he’s one of the most thrilling filmmakers working. His movies are certainly some of the MOST directed movies. Split screens, forced perspectives, wild angles, etc.. There’s nary a visual trick that he doesn’t like. The flip book of photos was a nice touch. You don’t watch him for realism, you watch him for verve. It’s a cliche, but it’s applicable — his camera is a character.

Blow Out is probably my favorite De Palma. All the signatures are there (though it isn’t quite as pervy as some of his other stuff ...). The fake-outs and slow reveals. My favorite here being the man lurking in the shadows as Tavolta goes down the river bank. He’s noticeable, but it isn’t obvious. The fun twist eventually is that that wasn’t even the assassin. That’s the photographer. So there’s actually three voyeurs on the scene. Then there’s the end. I can’t say it’s an emotional punch because I didn’t have much invested in the Jack-Sally dynamic (see below), but it certainly closes the movie’s loop with a haunting period.

There’s humor too. Dennis Franz’s sleezy photographer is a straight comedic charaicature. I laugh out loud at Travolta’s argument with the police detective where the detective is actually agreeing to help Travolta, but the shouting and tones of their voices otherwise wouldn’t indicate that. Plays like a comedy sketch. I think Lithgow is darkly funny as the murderous Burke too. He isn’t really a psychopath, just when he needs to be for the good of the country. Lots of post-Nixon commentary here. Sally is killed in front of giant Amrerican flag on a Fourth of July celebration. Not real subtle.

Travolta is good here as bit of a Boy Scout with only smudges of dirt on him. He wants to do right and he’s never swayed off that obsession (obsessions - there’s another De Palma trait). He’s become such a self-parody in the latter part of his career that I sometimes forget he has some decent chops when he wants to apply them. Nancy Allen’s a bit of an Achilles heel here for me. I think the character is a bit undercooked — her dual-sidededness is shockingly under exploited for a De Palma movie. But her sing-songy, daffy dimwit routine is a bit much. I know that in and of itself is an act, but I still don’t care much for the performance. And how about those early 1980s hospital regulations? She’s released awful fast and into the hands of a complete stranger? Different times.

 

[KallioWeHardlyKnewYe]

I had a completely different movie in mind for my next pick, but one movie popped up in my life three different, unrelated times this week and I take that as a sign. So I apologize, but next will be Elem Klimov’s Come and See (1985)

 

[Pranzo Oltranzista]

Blow Out
De Palma (1981)
“God that scream is terrible.”

POV from a man, peering into a house filled with many comely and scantily clad co-eds. He moves from window to window leering, stalking. He makes his way into the house, into a room, he rips a shower curtain open and the young woman behind it scream in terror ... sorta. The scream is a comedic caterwauling and suddenly we’re in a screening room. It’s only a movie. And it isn’t the movie we’re watching. At least not yet.

Jack is a soundman for a shclocky movie producer. He goes out one night to record some new sounds — wind, birds, night noises. But he gets more than he bargained for when he hears and witnesses a car accident. A tire blows and a car flies into the river. He jumps into action and saves Sally, the women in the car, but can’t help the man. At the hospital, we learn the man was the PA Governor and the favorite to win the upcoming presidential election. Jack’s keen ears, however, didn’t hear an accident. He heard not one, but two explosions. This is onlly about the first 15 minutes of the movie - a remarkably efficient set-up. From here we spin into classic conspiracy movie world. Jack, with the help of Sally, builds his case while multiple interests work against him including a sleazy photographer, a somewhat indifferent police force and most notably Burke, a Nixonian-plumber-fixer operating for unseen power brokers. In the end Jack gets the most minor of victories. He kills Burke, but he’s too late to save Sally. The truth is at the bottom of a river, never to be revealed. But in a tragic bit of self-flaggelation he does get his scream, taking Sally’s last moments of life and dubbing it over that poor dumb co-ed.

The opening of Blow Out alone is as conscise a summation of Brian De Palma as there may be. Self-aware, voyueristic. You’re always in a movie with De Palma (and sometimes movies within movies). I haven’t experience much middle ground when it comes to thoughts on De Palma. Detractors like to say he’s just a recycler/regurgitator of other, better work, namely Hitchcock, though in this specific case Antonioni’s Blow Up as well. This has never bothered me. When he’s on, I think he’s one of the most thrilling filmmakers working. His movies are certainly some of the MOST directed movies. Split screens, forced perspectives, wild angles, etc.. There’s nary a visual trick that he doesn’t like. The flip book of photos was a nice touch. You don’t watch him for realism, you watch him for verve. It’s a cliche, but it’s applicable — his camera is a character.

Blow Out is probably my favorite De Palma. All the signatures are there (though it isn’t quite as pervy as some of his other stuff ...). The fake-outs and slow reveals. My favorite here being the man lurking in the shadows as Tavolta goes down the river bank. He’s noticeable, but it isn’t obvious. The fun twist eventually is that that wasn’t even the assassin. That’s the photographer. So there’s actually three voyeurs on the scene. Then there’s the end. I can’t say it’s an emotional punch because I didn’t have much invested in the Jack-Sally dynamic (see below), but it certainly closes the movie’s loop with a haunting period.

There’s humor too. Dennis Franz’s sleezy photographer is a straight comedic charaicature. I laugh out loud at Travolta’s argument with the police detective where the detective is actually agreeing to help Travolta, but the shouting and tones of their voices otherwise wouldn’t indicate that. Plays like a comedy sketch. I think Lithgow is darkly funny as the murderous Burke too. He isn’t really a psychopath, just when he needs to be for the good of the country. Lots of post-Nixon commentary here. Sally is killed in front of giant Amrerican flag on a Fourth of July celebration. Not real subtle.

Travolta is good here as bit of a Boy Scout with only smudges of dirt on him. He wants to do right and he’s never swayed off that obsession (obsessions - there’s another De Palma trait). He’s become such a self-parody in the latter part of his career that I sometimes forget he has some decent chops when he wants to apply them. Nancy Allen’s a bit of an Achilles heel here for me. I think the character is a bit undercooked — her dual-sidededness is shockingly under exploited for a De Palma movie. But her sing-songy, daffy dimwit routine is a bit much. I know that in and of itself is an act, but I still don’t care much for the performance. And how about those early 1980s hospital regulations? She’s released awful fast and into the hands of a complete stranger? Different times.

I agree with pretty much everything here (except that Body Double is my favorite De Palma). Blow Up! is an amazing film, but I think Blow Out is really not far behind.

 

[kihei]

Blow Out (1981) Directed by Brian De Pallma

While collecting sounds on a bridge at night for a movie he is working on, Jack (John Travolta} believes he has captured an accident taking place, but it doesn't take him long to suspect that something far more ominous is at play--a political murder that people want to cover up. Blow Out is at best an average thriller made to appear more impressive thanks to his use of the work of better directors, Michelangelo Antonioni and Francis Ford Copolla, from whom De Palma has borrowed either as homage or in sacrilege, take your pick. I was and remain enthralled by both Blow Up and The Conversation and how one used pictures and one used sound in a way that I had never experienced in movies, before or since. Unlike Blow Out, both films slowly accumulated their power as each movie progressed, and both films made superb use of cinema to tell their story. In Blow Out, De Palma is a director of effects, a purveyor of magic tricks that he has learned from far more original directors. Much of the power of both Blow Up and The Conversation is subtle and elusive, especially in Blow Up's case, a sea of existential implications swirling beneath the impossibly elegant, mysterious surface. Beyond its immediate suspense, Blow Out has no depth whatsoever. This is certainly not because De Palma is lacking in technique which he has to burn. Blow Out is consistently fun to look at--the editing, the camera work (minus some show-off stuff like a series of consecutive 360 degree camera pans used for not much reason at all), even the lightning is amazing. Certainly cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond, one of the all-time greats at shooting film, deserves a big share of the credit, but there is no question that De Palma knows how to build suspense in movies. The problem for me is that outside of the immediate thrill there is no greater payoff--I guess you could say that his approach is a particular kind of pop art personified, get the jolt and move along to the next one. But after this movie was over, there was nothing left for me to think about except De Palma's many references to other directors, Hitchcock included (the back-and-forth panning shot of the row of telephone booths is right out of North by Northwest, done competently but to no effect concerning anything other than itself--an approach that I would describe as either self-indulgent or, maybe more accurately, masterbatory). A huge part of the problem in Blow Out is characterization. It would be fun to just watch this movie; unfortunately you have to listen to the dialogue, too. Outside of Jack, there is no one who is not a shallow caricature in the entire movie, annoying caricatures at that.. Blow Up and The Conversation derive much of their effectiveness from the slow, steady accumulation of ever more detail that seems to point to conclusions that still aren't iron clad. I got swept up in these progressions, deeply involved in trying to figure out what was going on. That doesn't even begin to happen in Blow Out--the good stuff comes right at the beginning in a brilliantly edited sequence of Jack recording sounds for his soft-porn movies. Within ten minutes after watching him on the bridge, we know exactly what happened, there is no mystery, existential or otherwise--the rest of the movie is just a repetition of Jack trying to get various poorly-drawn characters to believe him. We do get the pizzazz of De Palma's direction which is good because there really isn't much but fizz in this soda pop. Blow Out becomes a tale about a garden-variety conspiracy theory, weightless beyond belief, with an attempt at superficial tragedy tacked on at the end. Trying to compare Blow Up or The Conversation to Blow Out is like trying to compare a serving of Dover sole Bon Femme to a Big Mac. Empty calories can hit the spot sometimes, but, really, there is no comparison.

Edit: I had to spell a word wrong in my review to get it included, and you may not guess because it is so silly that the word is censured in the first place. So masturbatory isn't allowed (hint: think self-pleasure}, but what if I say jack off, I wonder. Ah, ha--that's allowed.

 

[KallioWeHardlyKnewYe]

Edit: I had to spell a word wrong in my review to get it included, and you may not guess because it is so silly that the word is censured in the first place. So *********ory isn't allowed (hint: think self-pleasure}, but what if I say jack off, I wonder. Ah, ha--that's allowed.

*onanistic.

 

[Pranzo Oltranzista]

The problem for me is that outside of the immediate thrill there is no greater payoff--I guess you could say that his approach is a particular kind of pop art personified, get the jolt and move along to the next one. But after this movie was over, there was nothing left for me to think about (...)

I rolled my eyes so far back that I think I'll just watch my brain for a while!