Don't Look Back

Saw Don't Look Back, a behind-the-scenes film which follows Bob Dylan on a British concert tour. Shot on sincere and intimate grainy black and white, it takes place mostly in boozy 3 am hotel rooms and in tight phone booths, cribbing from BBC reporters. The film opens with us overhearing interviewers asking Bob where he came from, what makes him sing? We hear one reporter tut into a phone that Bob's young audience probably doesn't understand the full meaning of his words. These are sort of running themes in the conversations captured in the film.

The most interesting bits of the film for me were the verbal sparring sessions Bob would have with reporters. Reporters would riddle him about his stance on religion or politics and although Bob does respond candidly to Times magazine, he would more often retreat into complicated word games. His favorite trick is to ask them to define every word. "Do you care very much about people?" "Well we mean different things by those words 'people', 'care'. What are people? What does it mean to care?" This is a good trick because either he'll get away with answering a very simple question ("there are people I care about") or the reporter will have to spend tons of time defining common words (and the words used in these definitions of course must be defined.) One poor young dude falls into this second trap. Bob successfully turns the interview around and quizzes the reporter on what a 'friend' is, on what he feels he's contributing to the world. It feels cruel, but Bob's smiling down at him as they talk. I get the sense that this is really interesting and valuable to him.

There's also screaming fans and nice, echoing, maze-like backstages. There's some weird business with the actual Sheriff of Nottingham's wife, and Bob losing his cool over someone throwing a glass off a balcony (which, to be fair, is a dick move,) and endless pot-shots at Donovan. Interesting little film about a guy I know little about. A bit too intimate and quiet for me, but an interesting little trip.

The Jerk

Saw The Jerk. I think it may be the first Steve Martin movie that I've really, genuinely enjoyed. Most of the time his humor is a tad too dry for me. I'm never sure if he's serious or just being folksy or being ironically folksy or what but this one was good. It follows a very stupid man having very stupid adventures. He dates a motorcycle-riding woman, sings songs on the beach, and goes travelling with his dog. There's much delightfully silly business.

There's some racial stuff ("I was born a poor black boy...") that's not offensive (as far as I can tell anyway) but is certainly weird enough that I think that no one would touch it in this modern time. It's a fun film tho. There's not a whole lot going on appart from silly fun. I enjoyed it.

Oblivion

Saw Oblivion, a sci-film from the early 2010s, a time rich with good, high-concept sci fi. This one has Tom Cruise in some kind of glass-and-white-plastic Apple™-inspired future where aliens have landed on Earth and are running rampant. Tom and lady friend have to protect the water-vacuums that are sucking up the oceans before they finally evacuate to one of Saturn's moons. Sounds nice, huh?

Tom makes an offhand comment early in the film about his "mandatory memory wipe" which implies some seriously heavy-handed control over his life. It also evokes the title, Oblivion, which means not only missing but forgotten. Also, when we see the aliens, they're well-obscured, decorated in feathers, and move suspiciously similarly to how a stuntman might shamble about. So, it is immediately apparent that things are not what they seem.

Later in the film the nature of experiences and identity gets played with, and we're treated to some nice visuals and some impressively threatening computer-noises. The drones (which are friendly) make dubstep-esque grows and shriek like pigs when they fly. They're great! Unfortunately the film sort of crystallizes into an action film once the showdown with the aliens starts for real. There's readings from Roman plays glorifying the noble death in the heat of battle and other such nonsense. There's that identity stuff I mentioned earlier that works to motivate the character into caring about dying well, but I feel it's not very well explored.

I'm kind of grasping at gripes here though. There's a few boring action sequences but the rest of the film is pretty to look at and fun to think about. Nicely done!

13 Assassins (1963)

Saw the 1963 version of 13 Assassins. It followed this band of 13 samurais who are supposed to kill this guy who is the son of one shogun and is the brother of another. He's untouchable but an utterly evil man. This was basically a heist movie. After establishing the rightness of their cause, we get a rallying-the-troops sequence, the stake-out, and the final, glorious, clockwork climax. It's a riot.

The film was shot in black and white but the film-quality is really good. I suspect they went black and white because this is a period piece or perhaps because it's a "serious" film but it has that smeary film quality that makes it look like television.

This film feels very a-typical of samurai films. The plot revolves around the justified killing of a nobleman. What is this, France? Also of note is that there's many hard deaths in this film. Normally in a samurai flick people die by theatrically stiffening up and falling over, quickly disappearing so that they can lie still until the shot is over. This movie has quite a few protracted deaths, with full on grimacing and stumbling and even one pointless death that happens in a cramped alleyway. The attacker in that case is frenzied and horrible. Very unlike the cool, extended-sword poses of other films.

I liked this movie. It's basically a heist but the heist formula works. There's always something to follow and be curious about, always some little personal tension to keep track of (although, with 13 main characters, some get completely lost in the shuffle.) A solid film.

Casque d'Or

Saw Casque d'Or, the film which apparently started the whole French New Wave. It's a sort of romantic crime story. A prostitute is the girlfriend of a gang member. At a tavern she falls in love with a random carpenter who has also been a jail-bird once. When the carpenter was in jail he befriended this thin dude who is also in the gang. The prostitute is also the favored girl of the head of the gang. These are the central conflicts: the prostitute and the carpenter are in love, the gang-leader wants her, a third man has her, and the carpenter has strong, bromantic ties to his jail-friend who (remember!) is also in the gang.

The film follows the seemingly doomed romance between the prostitute and the carpenter. They love each other but, since this is a crime film, honor and duty hang heavy and debts must be repaid. It seems fairly morbid and dismal to me, but then again I'm fairly dishonorable myself. I think I would probably die if I were in a gang one way or the other.

This aside, the film is beautifully shot and terribly, logically, dramatic. You can see why people would be inspired by the film and why it might re-ignite interest in noirs and crime dramas and interesting shots and such. The story is knotty and plausible, the main characters are all somewhat corrupt (although, of course, we root for them anyway.) It's an interesting film which unfortunately contains a lot of very familiar elements. It's noteworthy for having kick-started an artistic movement and a good film in its own merits but not especially interesting to me. Not bad, just not good enough.

Risky Business

Saw Risky Business, the film that I guess house-party films have been trying to copy ever since. It starts off very much like Ferris Bueller's Day Off, with a fabulously wealthy kid deciding, fuck it all, he was going to do what he wanted for a change. This is a fairly frustrating premise because it's portrayed as being very brave and liberating and more-human-than-thou and like yeah sure whatever but if I work for minimum wage what use is this example to me? The film Ordinary People dealt with the struggles of a rich family, but they were dealing with the death of their son and deaths happen to all families. Deciding to have the awesome bravery to say "fuck it" is not something I need to know how to handle (unless I've missed the point (which I feel I often do.))

That aside, the fim soon turns however when, in a fit of pre-internet-era horniness, the protagonist decides to call up a prostitute who steals his stuff and refuses to leave his parents' house. His parents are out of town, but they're returning in a few days and the protagonist's panic mounts. This gave me, the bored and decadent film-hound, a bit of schadenfreude for a while but the film is actually fundamentally on the rich kid's side so soon things start looking up (and thank goodness this film is taking the side of the rich kid because who else looking after the trust-fund babies in this cruel, harsh world?)

Despite the tricky premise, the film definitely has its moments. The much-parodied dancing-in-underwear scene is great and there's a train scene at the end which is really nice. The smirking ending feels like a lot of fun, even if it is a rich kid making good, and the moment where (of course) his parents fail to notice anything awry in the house is so good that shitty films have been copying it ever since (I'm thinking particularly of Project X here. I hated that movie so much.) I have to admit I didn't really like this movie, but I feel it wasn't really for me.

The Croods

Saw The Croods, a fairly goofy animated Dreamworks film about cave-folks who abandon their cave for silly and lushly animated adventures. The central conflict is between the father of the family who wants everyone to stay safe in a boring cave vs his daughter who wants them to explore and adventure. This conflict is thrown into high gear when the daughter meets this guy (named Guy) who is a clever, pretty dude who is full of non-cave-related survival technology.

The new Guy quickly usurps the father's position as head of the pack and everyone eagerly follows this new kid who is full of new technology, youth, and a promise of a better tomorrow. Much of the film follows the father slowly losing control of his family to this new guy. This is a kid's film, so it's not exactly a psychodrama. The family's embracing of the new guy is portrayed by the father sulking while everyone enjoys cave-mimosas, and the father being uncomfortable about this new guy standing so close to his daughter. Clearly, somewhere along the line someone said "what if the caveman father was, like, really conservative-minded? Like a caveman in the modern sense of the word?" and the writing team just ran with it.

The film is slightly cringy as a result of this. The father is just so at sea outside of his safe-zone and the new guy is just sooo competent and sooo pretty. The cards are very stacked against the father and indeed it's only when the father "changes" to become more like the new guy that he is redeemed. The father's fear-based approach to survival has its merits however. We learn in the voice-over prologue that they've out-lived many other families. I feel if this film were made today, in these more partisan times, the father might have better narrative legs to stand on.

Anyway, the film is a typical kid's film. Queasily sincere at times, but tons of lush animation, Sunday cartoon-ready characters, and a world that wants to dazzle you. The ending is earned and sincere and lovely. The characters are fun but I just couldn't shake the feeling that the cave-dad was going to just beat the pretty, smart, new guy to death with a stone at some point.

Samurai Gold Seekers

Saw Samurai Gold Seekers (AKA Sword of the Beast) a samurai movie about a dude on the run from his clan who are after him for killing their head clan-guy. We follow this dude and he's clearly the protagonist but most of the film concerns an illegal gold mining operation in the mountains. This is government land and thus it's illegal to mine there but a husband-wife team are mining away. There's a gang of thieves who are trying to steal this gold, the main dude who is in cahoots with an ugly man to steal the gold, and another husband-wife team from the clan who are hunting down the main dude. There's a lot going on.

The different groups are tied together with a theme of betrayal (especially of superiors over subordinates.) The protagonist is shaggy-haired and talks of the mountains as being the domain of "beasts" however the film argues that humans have beast-hood thrust upon them. Everyone is taking part in the bestial pursuit of gold, but everyone is compelled to do so by superiors or for nobel reasons (well, except for the gang of thieves. They're just evil.)

In keeping with the beastial/human dichotomy, much of the film is fairly lurid. Many rapes occur, murder is of course perpetrated at the drop of a hat, and double-crosses are common. Despite being made in the 60s, it has the feel of true-crime film, luxuriating in the ugliness of human activity.

This is a film with a straightforward message hidden behind a complex plot. It's very tough to follow at times but always reliably returns to a human caught between the nobility of their soul and the bestial compulsions of their superiors.