Saw Bad Lieutenant, a grumpy little film about a bad NYC cop. He extorts sexual favors from girls at a traffic stop, he sells drugs to drug dealers right out of their evidence bags. He does coke, crack, meth, and heroin, often in the company of women. Yes sir, he's a baaaaad cop. So what can all of this badness be for? Will he redeem himself in the third act? Will he be the necessary evil that this city needs to function? Or will he just be bad and you just have to deal with it, America. Well, the story takes its time getting to its punchline. It's fairly fun to see this dude be evil. He's clearly not enjoying himself and seems to be sinking deeper and deeper into a despairing hedonism as symbolized by his doubling down again and again on a Mets/Dodgers bet that never seems to pay off. Religious iconography features heavily, implying that the cop is begging to be stopped.
The plot, when it isn't following the cop being bad, is about a nun who is horrifically raped and who then won't name names out of some religious conviction. The bad cop's future is connected more and more intimately with this case as the film progresses. In the end, the film achieves a sort of redemption for the cop, but it's not very satisfying or very convincing. Such is the nature of hard-line religion. What is right is not what is satisfying.
This is a good, juicy morality play. It's not simple, and it's not straightforward, because life is not like that. The unsatisfying climax/ending leaves you something stuck in your craw, to think about for the next few days. A dour but (I think) rewarding film.
Jan 31, 2016
Mouchette
Saw Mouchette, a French film named after the protagonist girl who lives with her mother, father, and a baby. Her mother is sick with some kind of consumptive disorder, her father is a drunk and is shown often pushing Mouchette around, and the baby is, well, a baby. Always crying and needing feeding and then needing changing, once the milk is passed through. Mouchette takes care of her whole family in addition to going to school where the teacher is cruel to her and where her schoolmates snicker behind their hands at her giant shoes and patched dress.
This is art-house poverty-porn. The point of the film is to move us to pity the poor stalwart girl but the film has enough nuance that this is not always easy. In one scene she hurls clods of dirt at the snickering girls and when an old woman gives Moushette one of her old dresses, Mouchette sullenly growls at her that she's an old bitch. It takes some empathy and imagination to realize that Mouchette has been so humiliated by this point that she's furious at the pity and charity. Of course, we need not imagine such things. If we were feeling less indulgent, perhaps we could imagine that Mouchette is showing her true colors as a little brat, that she has broken under a life of toil and has become bad.
The plot involves Mouchette being involved in a poacher's alibi and then the whole of the town turns against her when Mouchette stands by the poacher, who has been the only person who has shown her any kindness (albeit in the form of bribes.) The film is pretty sad, not showing much promise for Mouchette's future, to say nothing of her present circumstances. I didn't find the film very depressing, but it isn't a happy film. I think this is old fashioned misery porn, meant to make us into better people but not very fun.
This is art-house poverty-porn. The point of the film is to move us to pity the poor stalwart girl but the film has enough nuance that this is not always easy. In one scene she hurls clods of dirt at the snickering girls and when an old woman gives Moushette one of her old dresses, Mouchette sullenly growls at her that she's an old bitch. It takes some empathy and imagination to realize that Mouchette has been so humiliated by this point that she's furious at the pity and charity. Of course, we need not imagine such things. If we were feeling less indulgent, perhaps we could imagine that Mouchette is showing her true colors as a little brat, that she has broken under a life of toil and has become bad.
The plot involves Mouchette being involved in a poacher's alibi and then the whole of the town turns against her when Mouchette stands by the poacher, who has been the only person who has shown her any kindness (albeit in the form of bribes.) The film is pretty sad, not showing much promise for Mouchette's future, to say nothing of her present circumstances. I didn't find the film very depressing, but it isn't a happy film. I think this is old fashioned misery porn, meant to make us into better people but not very fun.
Jan 24, 2016
This Film Is Not Yet Rated
Saw This Film Is Not Yet Rated, a documentary by Kirby Dick about the MPAA, the system that rates films in the US. It's a pretty entertaining and rabble-rousing film. It sets up the MPAA as the great devil, silencing films it disapproves of, holding viewings and meetings behind gates and security guards. They also actively hide who the raters are. It's all a bit overblown. But of course the rating system is a strange, schizophrenic beast. It's a kinder version of the Hayes code, created in the 50s to prevent a government censorship board from being set up. One of the talking heads in this film argues a government body would be better because at least there might be more transparency and anyway a government censorship board is more obviously undesirable.
But to return to the MPAA again: it sells itself as merely giving an indication of how mass audiences will react to a film. They are reflecting societal norms, they claim, not enforcing them. Well and good, but a film studio will not (widely) release or market a film that's rated NC-17, effectively censoring them after all. We hear that there are priests present at the appeals-board for a rating, that the MPAA gives a pass to violence (which they do) and come down harder on sex (which of course they do) So are they dictating the moral code or merely enforcing it? There's a sort of run-around here.
Anyway, in order to investigate the board of shadowy figures, Kirby hires a private investigator who is a dowdy sort of woman who looks like someone's mom (and is) who is very nearly more interesting than the MPAA itself. She looks like a kindly secretary but sews hidden cameras into her scarves. She's a lesbian (and how appropriate because if the MPAA hates sex, they despise both gay sex and female sexuality) with a son and daughter. She is amazing and hilarious, squashily sitting in restaurant booths next to suspected review-board-members and rifling through trash, looking for clues but also looking as though she were just a bored housewife looking for an important document. I love her.
So, the film is delightful fun, angering and outrageous. Kirby even sends the film in for review by the MPAA and gleefully records the resulting phone call (they rated it NC-17 because of course they did.) It's a fun film about a divisive topic with a bonus and badass PI thrown in, just for savor.
But to return to the MPAA again: it sells itself as merely giving an indication of how mass audiences will react to a film. They are reflecting societal norms, they claim, not enforcing them. Well and good, but a film studio will not (widely) release or market a film that's rated NC-17, effectively censoring them after all. We hear that there are priests present at the appeals-board for a rating, that the MPAA gives a pass to violence (which they do) and come down harder on sex (which of course they do) So are they dictating the moral code or merely enforcing it? There's a sort of run-around here.
Anyway, in order to investigate the board of shadowy figures, Kirby hires a private investigator who is a dowdy sort of woman who looks like someone's mom (and is) who is very nearly more interesting than the MPAA itself. She looks like a kindly secretary but sews hidden cameras into her scarves. She's a lesbian (and how appropriate because if the MPAA hates sex, they despise both gay sex and female sexuality) with a son and daughter. She is amazing and hilarious, squashily sitting in restaurant booths next to suspected review-board-members and rifling through trash, looking for clues but also looking as though she were just a bored housewife looking for an important document. I love her.
So, the film is delightful fun, angering and outrageous. Kirby even sends the film in for review by the MPAA and gleefully records the resulting phone call (they rated it NC-17 because of course they did.) It's a fun film about a divisive topic with a bonus and badass PI thrown in, just for savor.
Jan 23, 2016
Superman 2
Saw the Donner Cut of Superman 2 (thanks, Chris!) Apparently Donner was the director of Superman 2 but was fired due to "friction" and some other dude who had never read any comics in his life was brought on. This new dude decided to film it like a comic book, with flat sets and static shots. (I suppose if he were to adapt a radio play he would have had a mostly black screen, maybe with a photo of a radio?) This monumentally stupid decision resulted in a confusing, campy, and milquetoast film. A few decades later, when the Superman franchise was attempting another reboot, the old Donner footage was recovered and re-released and this is what I saw just now.
The result is much more grand. There's a majesty to the film, slightly dated though it may be. The plot is that three evil Kryptonians escape from their space-prison-postcard and wreck some havoc on Earth. They've been spared by soft-hearted Kryptonians who do not believe in capital punishment, but fortunately humans have no such squeamishness. Supes meanwhile is having a more serious relationship with Lois and, in keeping with the religious allegory of the first film, must become human if he's to love her. So a now-powerless Supes must fight three evil Super-people. Which he does.
The film is great fun. It's very comic-book-y in style (but not, thank god, in format) and has the same self-seriousness as the best comic books. There's a bit of camp, but it's true, unintentional camp, not winking, too-cool-for-itself bullshit. The cut is a little jittery at parts, the intro for example, is a whirlwind of back-story and details (Supes' costume is (for no reason) established as having been provided by his mother, for example.) It's a little more impressionistic and montage-y than the rest of the film, but I have no problems with a lack of polish here and there. If anything, it feels like a breath of fresh air coming before an otherwise perfectly straightforward film. A nice little film.
The result is much more grand. There's a majesty to the film, slightly dated though it may be. The plot is that three evil Kryptonians escape from their space-prison-postcard and wreck some havoc on Earth. They've been spared by soft-hearted Kryptonians who do not believe in capital punishment, but fortunately humans have no such squeamishness. Supes meanwhile is having a more serious relationship with Lois and, in keeping with the religious allegory of the first film, must become human if he's to love her. So a now-powerless Supes must fight three evil Super-people. Which he does.
The film is great fun. It's very comic-book-y in style (but not, thank god, in format) and has the same self-seriousness as the best comic books. There's a bit of camp, but it's true, unintentional camp, not winking, too-cool-for-itself bullshit. The cut is a little jittery at parts, the intro for example, is a whirlwind of back-story and details (Supes' costume is (for no reason) established as having been provided by his mother, for example.) It's a little more impressionistic and montage-y than the rest of the film, but I have no problems with a lack of polish here and there. If anything, it feels like a breath of fresh air coming before an otherwise perfectly straightforward film. A nice little film.
Jan 18, 2016
Human Planet, Episodes 1 and 2
Saw the first two episodes in a documentary series about humans surviving in interesting and extreme environments. There is of course lavish worship of rustic survival, but this fetishism is tempered by an acknowledgement of the economic realities that drive people into these habitats. The nomads, I suspect, would really prefer an SUV if they could only get the money. Anyway, such first-world sniping aside, the show is most interesting as an exploration of niche cultures and subcultures. As with the incredibly similar Planet Earth, it's just a bunch of stuff coming at you, so my "review" will consist mostly of just listing things. So, let's get to it!
Episode 1 - Oceans
We open on a pair of Spanish dudes harvesting goose barnacles, a high-risk, high-reward crop that grows on dangerous, rocky, wave-beaten areas just above the low-tide mark. The show then conflates the individual with the communal by asking "what drives us to these extreme habitats?" Well, for those two dudes, I bet it's money. Anyway, inspired by this question, we soar of to tiny whaling villages who still hunt by spear and row-boat. We then make a short jaunt in the surfing beaches of Hawaii and are told that surfing is a dramatic show of how we've tamed nature. I snorted into my tea but lo and behold, the show then pivots and talks about hurricanes, so well done show for not being as humanity-aggrandizing as I thought you were being. We then hit the climax of the episode: the compression-divers who dive dozens of meters with nothing but a plastic tube feeding them oxygen. The bends, where nitrogen bubbles form in joints which have decompressed too quickly, is everywhere. A melancholy, but visually splendid sequence. We end with a nomadic, sea-dwelling tribe of folks one of whom can hold his breath for five minutes. Incredible.
Episode 2 - Deserts
From wet to dry, we now open with the a metaphor: the amniotic sac is the ocean and we are born out into the desert. This episode begins with a young cow-heard driving elephants away from a watering hole so his cows can get a drink. I admit to thinking of elephants as being essentially gentle creatures, so I don't understand the danger, despite what the show tells me. Anyway, we then move on to wells in the desert. A troupe of women travel many kilometers in search of a well which, when it's revealed, looks to be the size of a welcome-mat (in the desert of course.) They also ration water and drink sweet tea, which sounds awesome. We then discover which side the film is on when two Mongolian nomads in the Gobi desert take shots at the evil wolves (Attenborough must be rolling in is grave.) We then see a group of men digging a well and adding it to an apparently gigantic network of wells which all feed a nearby city. Las Vegas is name-dropped but we don't linger there. We move on instead to a male beauty contest which is held during the lazy rainy season (feast your eyes!) We're following one dude who's hoping to land a lady. He's married, we hear, but his wife is both there and cool with it (and hoping to score a dude herself.) This is treated as not a huge deal and as simply another culture on this diverse planet. Very progressive. I'll have to come up with an equivalent of the animal mascots I did for Planet Earth. Maybe human super-powers? If so then maybe breath-holding and partner-swapping for this pair.
Episode 1 - Oceans
We open on a pair of Spanish dudes harvesting goose barnacles, a high-risk, high-reward crop that grows on dangerous, rocky, wave-beaten areas just above the low-tide mark. The show then conflates the individual with the communal by asking "what drives us to these extreme habitats?" Well, for those two dudes, I bet it's money. Anyway, inspired by this question, we soar of to tiny whaling villages who still hunt by spear and row-boat. We then make a short jaunt in the surfing beaches of Hawaii and are told that surfing is a dramatic show of how we've tamed nature. I snorted into my tea but lo and behold, the show then pivots and talks about hurricanes, so well done show for not being as humanity-aggrandizing as I thought you were being. We then hit the climax of the episode: the compression-divers who dive dozens of meters with nothing but a plastic tube feeding them oxygen. The bends, where nitrogen bubbles form in joints which have decompressed too quickly, is everywhere. A melancholy, but visually splendid sequence. We end with a nomadic, sea-dwelling tribe of folks one of whom can hold his breath for five minutes. Incredible.
Episode 2 - Deserts
From wet to dry, we now open with the a metaphor: the amniotic sac is the ocean and we are born out into the desert. This episode begins with a young cow-heard driving elephants away from a watering hole so his cows can get a drink. I admit to thinking of elephants as being essentially gentle creatures, so I don't understand the danger, despite what the show tells me. Anyway, we then move on to wells in the desert. A troupe of women travel many kilometers in search of a well which, when it's revealed, looks to be the size of a welcome-mat (in the desert of course.) They also ration water and drink sweet tea, which sounds awesome. We then discover which side the film is on when two Mongolian nomads in the Gobi desert take shots at the evil wolves (Attenborough must be rolling in is grave.) We then see a group of men digging a well and adding it to an apparently gigantic network of wells which all feed a nearby city. Las Vegas is name-dropped but we don't linger there. We move on instead to a male beauty contest which is held during the lazy rainy season (feast your eyes!) We're following one dude who's hoping to land a lady. He's married, we hear, but his wife is both there and cool with it (and hoping to score a dude herself.) This is treated as not a huge deal and as simply another culture on this diverse planet. Very progressive. I'll have to come up with an equivalent of the animal mascots I did for Planet Earth. Maybe human super-powers? If so then maybe breath-holding and partner-swapping for this pair.
Jan 17, 2016
Fat City
Saw Fat City, a boxing film. It follows two main characters: Ernie, who is at the start of his career, and Tully, who is near the end of it. Neither of them are really going to be stars and whereas Tully is terrified of his future as nothing much, Ernie seems more at peace with it. This is a film for and about men. The most major female character is a gloriously boozy woman who is a kind of human alley-cat. She's a great character, winsome at first and then a terror as the honeymoon phase burns off. But for the most part, the film is about poor men who use up their bodies and sink into a ruined old age.
The film contains many great minor performances. In one scene Tully's coach tries to tell his assistants a story. They mostly ignore him and chat with each other as the coach becomes increasingly annoyed and keeps trying to tell the punchline of his story. It's so understated and charming, I just wanted to listen to the three of them banter forever which maybe they will just do. There's also the previously mentioned girlfriend of Tully's who shrieks and clowns around. There's other little scenes of just small people doing small things and amiably getting by.
The film is kind of a bummer ultimately, dealing as it does with the fear of retirement and of being used up by life (and therefore, by metaphor, with death.) But it features a soundtrack of mournful country songs and gentle soul, so I don't think it's meant to scare or shock you. By the end of the film Tully is beginning to accept his relatively miserable lot and maybe, we may think, he will stop his self-destructive drinking, maybe he'll move past the great bout where he was cheated out of victory. The film closes with the two men contemplating a withered old man serving coffee in a diner. "Maybe he's happy." Says Ernie. "Maybe we all are." says Tully.
The film contains many great minor performances. In one scene Tully's coach tries to tell his assistants a story. They mostly ignore him and chat with each other as the coach becomes increasingly annoyed and keeps trying to tell the punchline of his story. It's so understated and charming, I just wanted to listen to the three of them banter forever which maybe they will just do. There's also the previously mentioned girlfriend of Tully's who shrieks and clowns around. There's other little scenes of just small people doing small things and amiably getting by.
The film is kind of a bummer ultimately, dealing as it does with the fear of retirement and of being used up by life (and therefore, by metaphor, with death.) But it features a soundtrack of mournful country songs and gentle soul, so I don't think it's meant to scare or shock you. By the end of the film Tully is beginning to accept his relatively miserable lot and maybe, we may think, he will stop his self-destructive drinking, maybe he'll move past the great bout where he was cheated out of victory. The film closes with the two men contemplating a withered old man serving coffee in a diner. "Maybe he's happy." Says Ernie. "Maybe we all are." says Tully.
Jan 16, 2016
Kings of the Road
Saw Kings of the Road. It felt like homework. Very slow, spare, shot in black and white with an obviously improvised script, I knew I was in trouble when I was skipping around to see if my subtitles were working and it took a long time to find a scene where people were talking. So I really didn't understand this film, and didn't enjoy it at any rate. The film follows two guys, one of whom is a film-reel delivery man and the other is some dude who's clearly trying to play hooky on his own life. The film opens with the hooky-guy tearing up a photograph of a house and then driving his car into a lake. He swims to shore to find delivery guy and, without a word, they decide to hang out with each other for a while while hooky-guy figures out some things.
This film was made in the 70s and has the existential angst which is so typical for art-house films of the time. It's terribly slow at 3 hours long and has precious little excitement or stakes. The night scenes are often beautiful tough, I'll give it that. It also involves a lot of pornography. I believe we are meant to realize that the delivery-guy is delivering prono reels actually, though this is never explicitly stated. The main points of the film are laid out at the very end of the film in a long, boozy, talk/argument/fist-fight between the two protagonists. Their way of life is revealed to be deeply childish. Children are often shown hanging around them and are talked to and about with respect. Like children, they are looking for meaning, for love, for direction. They express profound loneliness which echoes the delivery-guy's lonely job. Most of the time is spent in his isolation chamber on the road.
This will not one of my favorite films. It was a bit too long and slow for me. Perhaps cell phones and the internet have finally rotted my attention-span, but really. The themes are interesting but the film provides no answers. I suspect I missed out on some deep inner turmoil. The film is set on the border of East and West Germany pre-wall-falling, so maybe the two men are supposed to be East and West Berlin? I don't know. Very difficult film, very dry.
This film was made in the 70s and has the existential angst which is so typical for art-house films of the time. It's terribly slow at 3 hours long and has precious little excitement or stakes. The night scenes are often beautiful tough, I'll give it that. It also involves a lot of pornography. I believe we are meant to realize that the delivery-guy is delivering prono reels actually, though this is never explicitly stated. The main points of the film are laid out at the very end of the film in a long, boozy, talk/argument/fist-fight between the two protagonists. Their way of life is revealed to be deeply childish. Children are often shown hanging around them and are talked to and about with respect. Like children, they are looking for meaning, for love, for direction. They express profound loneliness which echoes the delivery-guy's lonely job. Most of the time is spent in his isolation chamber on the road.
This will not one of my favorite films. It was a bit too long and slow for me. Perhaps cell phones and the internet have finally rotted my attention-span, but really. The themes are interesting but the film provides no answers. I suspect I missed out on some deep inner turmoil. The film is set on the border of East and West Germany pre-wall-falling, so maybe the two men are supposed to be East and West Berlin? I don't know. Very difficult film, very dry.
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