Hit Me With Your Best Shot: The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999, Minghella)

I don’t have a ton of time today as I’m preparing for a weekend trip and want to get a couple of films in tonight. However! I found time to re-watch one of my favorite films from the 90’s; The Talented Mr. Ripley. Gearing up the old brain cogs, I tried to pick a focus. A shot that showcases some career-best work from either Matt Damon, Jude Law (I’ll never get over how impossibly good-looking he is here) or Gwyneth Paltrow? Or maybe a shot that reflects the source material and the way each depicts the duality of Ripley and his co-existing narcissism and identity-shedding self-loathing. Or maybe a shot that focuses on the homoeroticism between Ripley and Dickie? Or possibly a shot that allows me to talk about Walter Murch’s editing and thoughts on the mind-staggeringly genius book of conversations with between him and Michael Ondaatje?

Alas,  this is to be a short entry and when it comes to task the shot that has always stuck out to me more than any other is one that doesn’t represent the larger fabric of the film. Instead, it is the embodiment of boorish slime as portrayed by Philip Seymour Hoffman in the role of Freddie Miles. Hoffman’s my favorite actor working today and here, in the same year he played compassionate nurse Phil Parma in Magnolia, he takes a role like Freddie and embodies him, reflecting back all of Ripley’s self-disgust; wholesale. In a typical supporting sleaze-threat role he pushes every facial expression and gesture further, hand perpetually resting in mid-air, threatening to actually rest on something.

Chosen Shot:

I’ve never seen this face from Hoffman in any other performance. Every time I see this shot, his jazz-swerving body and that unyielding cold-stone pucker, there’s a visceral pull-back reaction; like I just witnessed something very very gross. It’s like one of his facial tics gets momentarily transplanted onto my face. Freddie doesn’t know Ripley, but he’s already got the intuitive fix on him; he sees a mooch, a counterfeit outcast in sheep’s corduroy clothing.  This shot is the first indication. Below is a tribute to the gestures and airs of Freddie and Hoffman’s performance, all conveyed in a handful of scenes, most of which cannot be fully appreciated with screenshots.

Some other non-Freddie favorites:

Review: The Great Gatsby (2013, Luhrmann)

The Great Gatsby is beloved by countless, a tale about the selfish emptiness within decadence and the upper class, a nation on the cusp of change and the increasingly unattainable American dream. It’s a book we’ve all had to read in our respective high school classes. Reigning personal memories include a horrid group project called ‘MTV Gatsby’ set up by an overcompensating student teacher. Yes, folks. We were assigned to create a music video about The Great Gatsby which clearly would provide endless layers of novelistic insight and comprehension. If only my student teacher knew that Aussie extravaganza Baz Luhrmann would release something similar eight years later.

I went into The Great Gatsby with a lot of skepticism. The book has never been a personal favorite, the trailers unimpressed and it was impossible to ignore the lukewarm reception. Much to my surprise, I walked out a moderate fan, so much so that I’m almost tempted to go back and see it again.

Baz Luhrmann’s indulgent theatricality of excess, the out-of-place soundtrack and the marriage of retro pastime and modernity are where he gets it right. These hyper-stylized ADD-like trademarks are on full display, especially in the first half as Nick (Tobey Maguire) becomes indoctrinated into the lifestyles of the rich and famous. Is Baz repeating himself here? Absolutely, and I think he will for the rest of his career. But those heightened moments of celebration and the way he detonates the viewer and audience surrogate, in this case Nick, into a world defined by fresh resurrection has the inescapable touch of a fantasy.

This comes across through Luhrmann’s near-obsessive focus with what I like to call the ‘gaze of astonishment’. It’s in most of his films, only occuring on either the smallest of scales (the fish tank scene in Romeo + Juliet) or the biggest (Nick entering his first Gatsby party). It is equivalent to the obligatory moment in fantasy where our protagonist first encounters another world; a land they never dreamed could exist. Luhrmann monopolizes this moment, morphing stylized fantasy into an Old Hollywood kind of realization. The ‘gaze of astonishment’ populates the first half of his films, when pacing is at its most breakneck. It’s often the only time Luhrmann consciously slows down, just for a moment mind you, to pull focus on the reactive wonder of spectacle.

Baz Luhrmann concocts within the realm of ‘pure cinema’, constantly working towards an otherwise untapped wavelength. A major stumbling point for him in regards to ‘Gatsby’ is that he squeezes his adaptation into this state of heightened cinema while simultaneously straining to keep his adaptation ‘literary’. The two don’t merge and this, far more often than Luhrmann’s garish posturing, is what distracts. And boy oh boy does he really hammer home the iconic imagery of the incorrigible green light and the gold specs of T.J Eckleburg.

There are certain showcase scenes that shimmer, fusing the novel seamlessly within Luhrmann’s universe. That first day between Gatsby and Daisy appropriately feels like Cloud Nine. The climactic hotel scene is allowed to breathe and scorches with wishy-washy intention and bracing tautness. There are great scenes sprinkled throughout The Great Gatsby, but that second half strikes an inert chord too often. For Luhrmann, slowing down usually means he’s still functioning at time-and-a-half, but he’s bogged down by his sense of loyalty to the novel and the film stiflingly gets away from him at certain intervals. Thankfully, the parts he gets right are mostly big moments, the ones that needed to stick the landing.

Gatsby and Daisy are erroneously presented as one of Luhrmann’s grand romances even though they don’t fit the bill. We’re meant to buy into Gatsby and Daisy with the impossible hope with which Gatsby urgently clings. This stance undermines the point of their dynamic and fate, asking for contradictory feelings from the audience. Nick’s gradual focus with which he sees most of this morally corrupt and selfish group needed to be the key focal point.

Luhrmann’s perpetual weakness for playing emotions on too grand a scale can work against him, zooming past the individual and occupying an irretrievable space we can only look up at from afar. As a result, Leonardo DiCaprio ends up being responsible for the majority of my emotional response to The Great Gatsby. This, quite frankly, surprised me. When I first heard he was cast, it felt too easy, a solid idea in theory, but not the best fit when you actually put some thought into the choice. Sure there’s initial stagnancy and I struggled with his dialect (an issue I usually have with him). DiCaprio comes through mainly because he’s always been good at bridging an emotional contact with his audience. He plays Gatsby as a boy playing dress-up, someone who pours everything into an unreachable dream. Once he gets past the stiltedness of those introductory scenes, I found myself truly feeling for the man; for how close he was to making that life for himself and the puckish nervousness that comes through his face at the right moments.

Even though Baz Luhrmann has made his whole career playing with love on a mythological scale, ‘Gatsby’ somehow becomes a distracting scene-by-scene recreation of Moulin Rouge! Except Moulin Rouge! is considerably better. While others scrutinized the film as adaptation, I couldn’t help constantly recalling his 2001 musical. For starters, I despise the first fifteen minutes of both for their cartoonish punctuation and put upon silliness. The misguided framing device in ‘Gatsby’ transfers the opening visual cues of post-tragic misery seen in Moulin Rouge!

Here are some more, just for kicks: Nick’s foray into drunkenness and Christian’s foray into absinthe; the first Gatsby party and the first excursion at the Moulin Rouge; the screwball tone and schoolboy shuffling when Satine mistakes Christian for the Duke and when Gatsby awaits his first reunion with Daisy; the ‘honeymoon’ period of Satine and Christian working on ‘Spectacular Spectacular’ and Daisy’s secret summertime paradise visits at Gatsby’s.

The list goes on and on. All of these scenes and much more, line up in overall parallels of structure, scene placement, tone and purpose. It goes past similarity, uncomfortably settling into carbon copy territory. At least in The Great Gatsby, Jay’s hopeful persistence serves its purpose, providing important characterization and an aggravating naïve edge to the doomed lover. Elsewhere in idealistic la-la land, Christian’s incessant non-stop talk of love had me mourning his survival over Satine’s death.

Through the uncharacteristically watered-down and contradictory components in The Great Gatsby, I still find myself doting on the film with an unexpected fondness. Though it can be difficult for me to grasp onto the bigness of Baz Luhrmann’s hyperkinetic romances, his singular audacity is also his greatest strength. Take Romeo + Juliet, a film that largely grates, but unlike ‘Gatsby’, goes for broke every step of the way. There’s an admiration and respect I have for its incomparably original streak. It broke ground you didn’t know was even there as Luhrmann reached out to cinema as a state of being, and in the mainstream sector no less! The Great Gatsby is often at odds with itself, but Luhrmann’s single-minded cinematic state of being comes across enough to tip the scales.

Films Seen in 2013 Round-Up: #98-105 & Reintroduction #32

#98. Witchfinder General (1968, Reeves)

Depicting violence without key trade-offs for the audience i.e titillation, a focus on the build-up to and the inevitable ‘pay-off’ was a bold and hard-to-swallow conceit in 1968 (especially by those expecting a ‘Vincent Price’ movie). Hell, it still is. Michael Reeves, who died at age 25 shortly after this film’s release, took some chances with his scummy trek through an inescapably bleak world where power yields a blank check of unimaginable suffering. It’s all doled out in matter-of-fact fashion by Vincent Price, in a chilling atypical depiction of collected subtlety. There’s really nothing inherently or traditionally enjoyable about Witchfinder General but that doesn’t take away from it being a good film. Perhaps the most admirable thing about it is that it while its depiction of 17th century England is likely not a paragon of accuracy, it feels so dirty, so lived in, so meager. It steps beyond forced recreations of time periods with its low-budget expenditure and a washed out glow of pales and whistling winds. It’s not a pretty film in either content or aesthetic and Reeves makes good by sticking to his guns in this way.

99. Hoop Dreams (1994, James, etc)

Some of my favorite documentaries are the ones where the finished product is entirely different from its original conception (ex. The Up Series, Capturing the Friedmans). Hoop Dreams was meant to be a 30-minute special, only to morph into an ambitious 4-year project, collecting 250 hours worth of footage. Examining the American Dream via two African-American teenagers in inner-city Chicago who dream of playing in the NBA, Hoop Dreams develops far beyond its subject. I don’t like basketball. Hell, I don’t really care for sports. But this isn’t about basketball. It’s about the make-it-or-break-it years for William Gates and Arthur Agee, both extremely talented players. In the world of basketball, adolscence is where the stakes are highest both professionally and personally. This is more than just a dream for Agee and Gates. In an urban enviornment such as this, surviving and graduating high school are considered not give-ins but achievements that not everyone gets to experience. Success means getting out of their ‘inherited incarceration’ and making a better life for themselves and their families. The pressure on them from themselves, family members, professional mentors, coaches, etc. is incaluculable and palpable. The stakes literally become life-or-death for these kids and we as an audience get wholly caught up in their victories and their strife.

The running time and the way Steve James and company assemble the film, which follows the two boys throughout their high school career, lets everything breathe. We are so used to super-structured documentaries and reality TV, that to see Hoop Dreams both construct a narrative, and acknowledge that it’s not the narrative feels revelatory. The filmmakers always take care to remind us that we are getting a sliver of a peek into their lives. Events unfold naturally and often surprisingly, being careful never to anticipate the directions the boys lives will take. We get our information presumably when the filmmakers do.

In constant periphery are the inherent and complex social and economic problems that pervade all without it ever feeling condescending to its subjects. Hoop Dreams is on-the-level and some people could learn a lesson on how to represent African-American inner-city life almost two decades later.

Included is the life-and-money-sucking meat market of the sports world where coaches, schools, recruiting agents and the like fall over each other for a taste of these kids, promising riches and waiting to suck them dry before their lives have even started. St. Joseph’s witholding of Arthur’s scholarship is devastating as is any other number of things in Hoop Dreams. This is a rousing and at times overwhelmingly emotional and involving experience that stands at the tippity-top of the best documentaries out there.

#100. Lady for a Day (1933, Capra)

Whoever haughtily dismisses this early Frank Capra is off their rocker. Because I’ll say it outright; I prefer this to It Happened One Night. That has just as much to do with how lukewarm I am towards It Happened One Night as it represents how much I loved Lady for a Day.

It’s the earliest Capra film that oozes his trademark sentamentalist formula. It’s yanks at your insides but provides just as many belly-laughs. It’s populated with character actors, mostly from the Warner Brothers lot, giving everyone a chance to shine. It’s bookended by estranged family schmaltz and is a delicious comedy of errors at its center. Warren Willam, May Robson, Guy Kibbee and Ned Sparks are all memorable, even if Robson is dropped in the middle section.

Lady for a Day encapsulates what I love about Old Hollywood and the singular spell it can cast. It’s a world where a supersitious gangster won’t make any shady deals until he buys an apple from ‘Apple Annie’. The film is unabashedly sentimental, completely preposterous, and a result, summarily charming.

#101. Dead Man’s Burden (2013, Moshe)
Full Review: http://cinenthusiast.wordpress.com/2013/05/10/review-dead-mans-burden-2013-moshe/

#102. Summertime (1955, Lean)
A limply dated love story can’t stop Katherine Hepburn’s poignant portrait of a spinster daring to hope for love or David Lean’s touristy love of Venice from shining through.

Hit Me With Your Best Shot post:  http://cinenthusiast.wordpress.com/2013/05/08/hit-me-with-your-best-shot-summertime-1955-lean/

#103. Bad Timing: A Sensual Obsession (1980, Roeg)

Nicolas Roeg uses his elliptical memory-based editing to great effect here as past and present reminisce, contradict, and reveal the troubled layers beneath a turbulent relationship based on conflicting interests in desires for possession and freedom. Roeg uses Art Garfunkel’s persona to swerve expectation. We presume to encounter wordly kindness from him. Instead he’s a cold demeaning asshole. Garfunkel’s lack of acting ability damages the film in some ways, but also has its advantage in the streak of indifferent cruelty he unintentionally exudes.

 

Theresa Russell is fiery and damaged and a force to be reckoned with. The film works against her, invalidating her claim to independence by giving her a self-destructive weakness, and by being so invested in the way Garfunkel’s obsession with her is undone by old-time masculine arrogance. It’s also got a misogynistic streak. But I think Russell’s performance saves the film from being accusingly dismissive of her perspective on life. She gets Melina. She gets that she dares to want her own life, to not be defines ot owned by a man. She presents this with a conviction shakeable only in her inability to reconcile when it gets down to brass tacks. And so I got Melina and sympathized with her plight even when Bad Timing seems to want to dismiss her as an alcoholic emotional wreck. In a sense she saves the film and I mostly loved it as a result. It’s an obsessive, delusional work of in-sync connections giving way to an unresolvable avalanche. It demands more attention, as much as Roeg’s most famous works.

#104. Three Strangers (1946, Negulesco)

I’ve been wanting to see all of the Peter Lorre/Sydney Greenstreet collaborations for years now. Last month I saw that both Three Strangers and The Verdict were going to air on TCM, and so I commanded my DVR to finally trap them for me. I had heard both are overlooked films to seek out and after seeing them I have to agree.

We meet the three strangers just as they converge, without context, brought together by Geraldine Fitzgerald’s frank pretend-dalliance into prostitution. Greenstreet’s expression when he sees Lorre in the apartment is priceless. Placing a ritualistic gamble on Chinese goddess Kwan Yin, each go their seperate way and we see all three (with the partial exception to sympathetic loser Lorre) knee deep in their own criminal activity, manipulation and scheming.

Three Strangers is about fate and asks whether or not destiny already had it out for these three characters. Only Lorre realizes that fate is an excuse, that you have a choice and that this choice stems from the soul of your own person. Greenstreet and Fitzgerald never had a chance because they mistook destiny for their own greedy gait which only left one path for their ends.

The film’s middle section gets away from the main three and there are troublingly less engaging times to be had when ten minutes pass and we haven’t seen Lorre, Greenstreet or Fitzgerald. But when it concentrates on any or all of them, each gets their chance to play the hell out of their parts. The film is a study of nefarious deeds and the relentlessness that comes with unknowingly digging one’s own fateful grave. Negulesco gives the film a dreamlike connective tissue which feels like an upper hand moving the chess pieces of fate into place.

#105. The Verdict (1946, Siegel)

Don Siegel, who would go on to direct Dirty Harry, Two Mules for Sister Sara and much more in future decades, gets off to a formidable start with this fog-strewn whodunit set in London starring Peter Lorre and Sydney Greenstreet. Its twist ending is relatively evident but that in no way takes away from The Verdict and the revelation still lands. In another film, the plot set-up would lay the cobblestones for a shot at redemption. Here, it sets up a suicide run.

Lorre, playing another man who loves to dilly-dally with alcohol, is tops as usual. Really, the whole thing is a great yarn. At this point, it’s become a grand ambition in my life to be a Lorre/Greenstreet afficianado. Films with Lorre and Greenstreet headlining are more than worth seeking out, first for their existence and second because they are wonderful fare. I fear I’ve seen the best of them, although I hear great things about The Mask of Dimitrios.

Reintroduction #32:
Alice (1988, Svankmajer)
First Seen in: 2009

While fairy tales and unrelated cousins, such as Lewis Carroll’s works, inaccurately get categorized as fairy tales and continue to be trendily bastardized into lazy old forms, I went back to visit what is easily my favorite adaptation of Lewis Carroll’s classic. This is another film I’d love to write about at length someday. For now, a quick basic gathering of thoughts will suffice.

To be clear, Alice isn’t a full-on adaptation and the credits even state ‘inspired by…’. It’s amusing that the most artistically rewarding take on Carroll’s work is really a decayed skeletal recreation, nothing like the dainty fantasy of the book. For Svankmajer, there is no Wonderland; only shavings, nails, wood, bones, endless clutter, keys, pebbles and the like within a decomposing house. There’s nothing wondrous or magical here in the traditional sense. The world of Alice is constructed out of a fascination with found objects,  and with Svankmajer’s bizarrely unforgettable and literally eye-popping stop-motion mastery. The sound design is as crucial to Alice as the visuals are, calling attention to itself in an out-of-step way, purposely existing on a different plane.

The magic of Alice is undoubtedly in Svankmajer’s stop-motion work,which brings sawdust-stuffed rabbits, socks, skeletons, cards, leaves and dolls to unsettling life. It makes the power of Alice what we discover through sight and sound. There’s little-to-no dialogue, which is all told in narration and purposely dubbed over in English. The story is stripped to its abstract subconscious guts and thrown at us in dreamlike image after dreamlike image.

It comes back to Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland being inaccurately categorized as a fairy tale. Sure, a connection can be drawn to fairy tales in that there is a lesson to be learned, a parable at its fantasy-laced heart. Jan Svankmajer forgoes all of this for his first feature film, focusing instead on the dream state. Alice’s curiosity and the art of nonsense is distilled into pure uncut image and sound, and as an audience our understanding of the possible is newly awakened.

Review: Dead Man’s Burden (2013, Moshe)

 

Strikingly shot on 35mm in the no-man’s-land vistas of New Mexico, indie western Dead Man’s Burden takes a simmering familial conflict and sets it aflame under overexposed sunlight. Classical in its constant callbacks to the likes of John Ford, and Anthony Mann and authentic in its period art direction, despite a meager budget and single location, producer-turned-writer/director Jared Moshe knows his stuff, but has trouble fleshing out and distinguishing his undercooked vision.

Set in 1870 and still reeling from the end of the Civil War, married couple Martha (Clare Bowen) and Heck (David Call) attend the funeral of her father Joe who supposedly died falling from his horse. The official cause of death, is immediately contradicted by the opening scene, but surrounded by the graves of her war-slain siblings, its one more death than Martha can stand. Dreaming of re-locating to San Francisco, shedding her farming skin and starting anew in the hotel business, Martha can make this happen so long as she and Heck can successfully broker a deal with mining company representative E.J. Lane (Joseph Lyle Taylor) and sell her late father’s plot of land. There’s only one problem. Days before the deal goes through, Martha’s older brother Wade (Barlow Jones) returns after a long absence, prompted by his estranged father’s deathbed letter urging him to return home. Unexpectedly walking back into his ‘little sunshine’s’ life, Wade’s ears are pricked and guns cocked, with Lane in his sights as an opportunistic swindler.

Tensions brew but nothing quite hits its target in Dead Man’s Burden, landing just shy of the mark. It’s a decent ensemble, especially considering how the material embraces genre tropes a little too eagerly, something each performer struggles with at times. Barlow Jones’ repetitious ‘I reckons’ and continual talk of the never-present law, recalls a low-rent version of Seth Bullock.

Despite the odd stumble into pastiche, Clare Bowen manages to craft a more complex character in Martha, driven by a palpable, desperation to flee the homestead. The act of comprehending character motivations tends to rely on an audience’s ability to relate to broad stroke emotions like desire, anger and fear, and the success of Bowen’s performance is that we can actually feel the fire of all three, a fire specific to her that burns both sympathetically and selfishly. As her physically exhausted but toughened body hunches over, white-gold hair perpetually windswept across her face, Bowen displays true grit as a female fronting a western. Beyond the novelty value she’s a heroine we can root for, somebody we want to make the best of her only chance of escape.

Jared Moshe does a commendable job of presenting Western iconography within a minimalist palette but is thwarted by his story’s conventionality, clunky dialogue and a lack of compelling character development. Wade’s fumbling awkwardness when it comes to ritual is a much-appreciated character beat in sharp relief to the nuance sorely lacking elsewhere. With such a svelte running time, Dead Man’s Burden could have been pithily charged. When tackling big, explicitly stated themes of familial bonds and betrayal on such an intimate, self-contained playing field, the fury of those feelings ought to be apparent in every aspect. Character introductions and stand-offs should feel like third act revelations, but the film never ascends to the level of Greek tragedy as in Anthony Mann’s The Furies, surely a source of inspiration for Moshe as the most famous example of a western with a female lead.

Even with a confined setting, the special dynamics are a little off. Wade’s introductory scene, ending in a shoot-out between him and two men is shot at too great a distance, failing to build tension, invest the audience or lend the intended atmosphere. Sure, the cinematography has considerable mileage, but it can only take Dead Man’s Burden so far. The film eventually finds surer footing, engaging more and more as it goes along, though low-impact exposition and verbal excursions into the past don’t ruffle the film’s fabric in quite the way they should.

Moseying when it needs to gallop, the opening scene is an example of Moshe lacking confidence in his abilities as a storyteller. It’s supposed to start us off with a bookended bang, giving the audience more information than Wade has at the outset and theoretically lending suspense and intrigue to everything that follows. It’s a solid in media res idea, and with stronger writing the notion might have worked. In execution it ends up hindering the film, unintentionally revealing that Moshe’s characters are not engaging enough on their own terms.

Again, there’s that fail safe of the undeniable beauty of Moshe’s debut, which captures the golden-streaked sunlight and sandy curvatures of desolation in the desert – and in truth, Robert Hauer’s photography, is the star of the show. Dead Man’s Burden is worth seeing, especially since its slim pickings for Westerns these days, but as a character-driven drama, character is where it comes up short.

Posted on Cine Outsider on May 10th, 2013:  http://www.cineoutsider.com/index.html

 

Hit Me With Your Best Shot: Summertime (1955, Lean)

The shot I chose from David Lean’s Summertime is central to the fleeting grasp of Jane and Renaldo’s (played by Katherine Hepburn and Rossano Brazzi) romance, built around the symbols of goblets, white gardenias and a red shoe. This is the first Hit Me With Your Best Shot I’ve participated in where the chosen film was a first-time viewing!

At night in the Piazza San Marco, Jane and Renaldo are approached by an elderly peddler with a basket of flowers. The eventual lovers go back and forth, so obliviously caught up in each other that even picking out a flower becomes foreplay. Jane wants to know which one he thinks she’ll pick and she surprises him by picking the gardenia. When he asks why she chose the white flower she says:

“I once went to a ball. Not just an ordinary dance, but a real ball. Was the first one I’d ever been to. Somehow, I got it into my mind that I had to wear a gardenia. I don’t know why. I guess I’d read about gardenias in a book or something. I must have, I didn’t even know what they were.”

Renaldo asks if she got to wear one and she disappointingly answers while gazing at the flower, “Gardenias turned out to cost two dollars apiece. And the boy I was going with was still in college.”

Director David Lean places as much significance on the gardenia as Jane does. Her quick monologue is the most concentrated piece of information we find out about her past; the singular story about her life she tells. The shot I chose for Summertime overlooks the endless splendor of Venice as captured by Jack Hildyard or the conflicted tics of rapture and resistance in Katherine Hepburn’s bravura performance. Yet it sticks out to me because it ties so strongly into Jane’s overall arc (and don’t worry, I’ve got some runners-up to share at the end.)

Soon after, the gardenia falls in the water and the pair tries to retrieve it as it floats by, just out of reach. The shot shows the reflection of their failed efforts, struggling to reach for their own shared paradise. For Jane, the gardenia is a simple adornment that she latched onto as a young woman having her first experience at a proper ball. Having it would have elevated her evening. For Lean the gardenia becomes both a symbol for Jane and Renaldo’s affair which will carry its significance to the final scene and a representation of Jane’s tendency to infuse memories into objects as a substitute for experiencing life.

The central love affair sort of engages the viewer but Jane’s internal struggle, and the way Hepburn plays it, is what ultimately rings true in Summertime. She constantly wants to separate herself from typical American tourists but it doesn’t quite stick. Though free of life-sucking schedules, she romanticizes like the rest, camera securely attached to hip. Her professed desire to travel alone suggests hidden loneliness. Most of all, she loves the idea of Venice, but is afraid to give herself over to its stereotyped ideals. When fantasy threatens to meet reality, Jane pushes and pulls every step of the way. Even at the end, she begs Renaldo not to see her off at the station only to anxiously gape out from the window of the train, hoping with every fiber of her being that he’ll show up at the last moment.

This is 1955, so obviously Katherine Hepburn was never going to be allowed to glide away in a gondola with Rossano Brazzi because, as she puts it, ‘it’s wrong’. The story also makes sure that it is Jane’s decision to end things.

When the gardenia fell in the water and Renaldo attempted to retrieve it, she said ‘it doesn’t matter’, but it clearly did as seconds later she joined him, and the reflection revealed that both the gardenia and each other were unattainable. Summertime’s final scene sees Renaldo running alongside the train, gift in outreached hand. He can’t catch up to Jane so he opens the present, holding it up to reveal a white gardenia. She is immeasurably moved and she mouths the words ‘I see it’ blowing a satisfied wistful kiss. This time she really doesn’t need the white gardenia or the infused memory it would carry; just seeing it, and him one last time, is enough.

Runners-Up:

List: Top 30 Anticipated Summer 2013 Films (May-August)

Summer, as we all know, is the season of the blockbuster. Steven Soderbergh’s recent speech at the San Francisco International Film Festival accurately and ardently dug into the state of Hollywood filmmaking today and surely summer is the time that best represents the problems he speaks about. I highly recommend seeking out the transcript and/or video of his words, because despite the fact that some blockbusters turn out great, the system is out-of-control inflated and highly problematic. What’s more, considering that producers and studios are mainly out to make a profit, it’s befuddling to see how they’ve set themselves up to fail with the astronomical expenses spent on production and marketing. And as far as the ‘state of cinema’ goes, it doesn’t help that most of the people making decisions don’t actually know anything about telling a story. But this is all stuff we already knew and it’s certainly not a new opinion; Soderbergh just breaks it down for you from the inside out and as someone who has been through it.

I pride myself on my eclectic viewing habits. I’m not the sort to create an elitist self-imposed bubble of Kim Ki-duk’s or Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s. Nor am I the type to primarily drool over the extravagant franchise films. I look forward to a lot of different movies and while a portion of my anticipated choices are considerable releases, a giant chunk of widely anticipated films are being left off my list. Some, like The Great Gatsby, Pacific Rim, Iron Man 3 and The Wolverine, I want to see but they simply didn’t make the cut. Others, like The Hangover III, Fast and Furious 6, World War Z, The Lone Ranger, RED 2 and R.I.P.D, I couldn’t have less interest in. And it goes without saying there’s a ton more that didn’t make it, some I want to see (Byzantium, The Way, Way Back, etc.) and some I don’t (300: Rise of an Empire, 2 Guns. etc.)

So what did make the cut? Scroll down to find out and be sure to tell me your picks. I may have missed a few films and surely other release dates will be secured throughout the season and I’ll rectify the list as needed. The list covers US releases from May-August, which makes up what is commonly referred to as the summer movie season.

What are you most looking forward to?

30. Twenty Feet from Stardom (USA, Neville) (Documentary)
Summary: Backup singers live in a world that lies just beyond the spotlight. Their voices bring harmony to the biggest bands in popular music, but we’ve had no idea these singers are or what lives they lead, until now.

I latched onto the inspired idea behind this doc and found myself eager to learn more about the underexplored back-up singer’s experience.

29. The Spectacular Now (USA, Ponsoldt)
Summary: A hard-partying high school senior’s philosophy on life changes when he meets the not-so-typical “nice girl.”

A Sundance smash that’s lived through the initial hype phase to consistently impress has stayed on my radar.

28. Far Out Isn’t Far Enough: The Tomi Ungerer Story (USA, Bernstein) (Documentary)
Summary: Far Out Isn’t Far Enough: The Tomi Ungerer Story depicts one man’s wild, lifelong adventure of testing societal boundaries through his use of subversive art.

I’m always drawn to documentaries that profile artists and this looks to focus on an interestingly offbeat individual and his work.

27. The Conjuring (USA, Wan)
Summary: Paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren work to help a family terrorized by a dark presence in their farmhouse. Forced to confront a powerful entity, the Warrens find themselves caught in the most terrifying case of their lives.

James Wan’s follow-up to the super-effective Insidious continues his trek into the spook-potential of (assumed) PG-13 land.

26. Blue Jasmine (USA, Allen)
Plot undisclosed

Woody Allen’s latest could be a slam-dunk or instantly forgettable but hopefully it’s the former, especially with a cast like Cate Blanchett, Sally Hawkins, Peter Sarsgaard, Michael Stuhlbarg and Louis CK (!!). Seriously, this is my favoriteWoody Allen cast since who knows when.

25. Ain’t Them Bodies Saints (USA, Lowery)
Summary: The tale of an outlaw who escapes from prison and sets out across the Texas hills to reunite with his wife and the daughter he has never met.

Another Sundance smash with ferociously high buzz that peaked my interest and I can’t argue with Casey Affleck, Rooney Mara and Ben Foster as the leads.

24. Monsters University (USA, Scanlon)
Summary: A look at the relationship between Mike and Sulley during their days at Monsters University — when they weren’t necessarily the best of friends.

2013′s Pixar release, a prequel-sequel to Monsters. Inc has me very excited if not ecstatically so. This is Dan Scanlon’s first film, so pressure’s on and we’ll see if he and his many collaborators can meet what I like to call the ‘Pixar bar’. Pixbar? Nah, ‘Pixar bar’ it is.

#23. Much Ado About Nothing (USA, Whedon)
Summary: A modern retelling of Shakespeare’s classic comedy about two pairs of lovers with different takes on romance and a way with words.

One of my favorite Shakespeare works re-told by one of my favorite present-day storytellers; the two are a weirdly perfect match and Whedon has filled the cast with his regulars. Who isn’t freaking out over the notion of Alexis Denisof and Amy Acker as Benedick and Beatrice?

#22. The East (USA/UK, Batmanglij)
Summary: An operative for an elite private intelligence firm finds her priorities irrevocably changed after she is tasked with infiltrating an anarchist group known for executing covert attacks upon major corporations.

This clearly has a boatload in common with Batmanglij/Brit Marling’s previous collaboration The Sound of My Voice. While flawed, there was a lot to like and admire there and they went refreshingly outside the box for their basic story and low-fi execution. I’m still not quite sold on Marling though; it’ll take more than a few solid efforts to wash the bile taste of Another Earth from my mouth.

21. Star Trek Into Darkness (USA, Abrams)
Summary: After the crew of the Enterprise find an unstoppable force of terror from within their own organization, Captain Kirk leads a manhunt to a war-zone world to capture a one man weapon of mass destruction.

Somehow I’ve become a J.J Abrams apologist; sure, he’s a purely straight-arrow storyteller but I’ve flat-out loved every one of his films and count me a fan of the lens flare, thanks so much. I get to shed any Star Trek baggage that other people come to this franchise with, as I never have or never will be into Star Trek. Instead I get to take these films at face value, and as a consider-me-sold fan of the 2009 film, I’m definitely looking forward to this one.  But maybe not so much the fandom explosions that I somehow cannot avoid though try I do.

#20. Man of Steel (USA, Snyder)
Summary: A young journalist is forced to confront his secret extraterrestrial heritage when Earth is invaded by members of his race.

Now I wouldn’t call myself a Zach Snyder apologist; I’ve got more of a ‘let’s give him the benefit of the doubt before we start bitching about him’ stance. Because as we know, film bloggers love to spend a lot of their energy complaining. If he goes down, he’s going to go down trying; you have to give him that. The best parts of Watchmen are genuinely spectacular. Really, the whole film was overly bashed, unfortunate given how much there is to love. And though Sucker Punch is insanely problematic from start and finish, at least it’s a vision; a juvenile boy-jizzing vision to be sure, but a vision nonetheless. And Dawn of the Dead is a damn good flick, bar none. OK, rant over. I couldn’t give two shits about Superman. All I know is that the trailers for Man of Steel genuinely moved me. Like, they really did. They pulled on my apparently deeply latent sentimental heartstrings; all you need is some vocalizing and field-grazing. I’ll bite; let’s see what you’ve got for us this time Mr. Snyder.

#19. Elysium (USA, Blomkamp)
Summary: Set in the year 2154, where the very wealthy live on a man-made space station while the rest of the population resides on a ruined Earth, a man takes on a mission that could bring equality to the polarized worlds.

Concluding this one-two-three punch of major releases, Elysium is Neill Blomkamp’s follow-up to District 9, a bona-fide 21st century sci-fi classic. So I can’t wait to see what he does next. Generally, I’ve been watching a lot less trailers, actively avoiding some in fact. I did end up watching this one, and what I liked about it was that it seemed to consciously contain footage only from early parts of the film. Trailers should generally be doing this way more.

18. Sightseers (UK, Wheatley)
Summary: Chris wants to show girlfriend Tina his world, but events soon conspire against the couple and their dream caravan holiday takes a very wrong turn.

Ben Wheatley seems to be able to churn films out pretty quickly, skewed US release dates notwithstanding. This looks like a darkly comedic departure from Kill List, and he’s someone who I mean to check out each and every time. I’m never drawn to poster quotes as a rule, but when a poster touts the claim “The Best British Comedy since Four Lions“…….sign me the hell up.

17. A Hijacking (Denmark, Lindholm)
Summary: The crew of a Danish cargo ship is hijacked by Somali pirates who proceed to engage in escalating negotiations with authorities in Copenhagen.

I’ve been hearing a lot about A Hijacking since last year’s Venice and Toronto festivals, and it’s been making the rounds for some time. It’s acquired a US release and I’m certainly eager to see it.

16. Prince Avalanche (USA, Green)
Summary: Two highway road workers spend the summer of 1988 away from their city lives. The isolated landscape becomes a place of misadventure as the men find themselves at odds with each other and the women they left behind.

A return to form for David Gordon Green?! Am I dreaming?! Thank Zeus.

15. Call Me Kuchu (USA/Uganda, Wright & Worrall) (Documentary)
Summary: In Uganda, a new bill threatens to make homosexuality punishable by death. David Kato – Uganda’s first openly gay man – and his fellow activists work against the clock to defeat the legislation while combating vicious persecution in their daily lives. But no one, not even the filmmakers, is prepared for the brutal murder that shakes the movement to its core and sends shock waves around the world.

Do I really have to put a reason?

14. I’m So Excited (Spain, Almodovar)
Summary: When it appears as though the end is in sight, the pilots, flight crew, and passengers of a plane heading to Mexico City look to forget the anguish of the moment and face the greatest danger, which we carry within ourselves.

No idea what that weird summary is about, but Almodovar returning to comedy sounds just like heaven. I know the notices have been less than stellar so far but it’ll be nice to see him shift back into comedy .

13. You’re Next (USA, Wingard)
Summary: When the Davison family comes under attack during their wedding anniversary getaway, the gang of mysterious killers soon learns that one of victims harbors a secret talent for fighting back.

After hearing about this for who knows how long at this point, we’ll finally get to see that festival circuit horror film that’s had everyone talking.

12. Pieta (South Korea, Kim)
Summary: A loan shark is forced to reconsider his violent lifestyle after the arrival of a mysterious woman claiming to be his long-lost mother.

New Kim Ki-duk. Enough said? Enough said.

11. The World’s End (UK, Wright)
Summary: Five friends who reunite in an attempt to top their epic pub crawl from 20 years earlier unwittingly become humankind’s only hope for survival.

Edgar Wright’s final installment to his “Three Flavours Cornetto Trilogy”. Considering that Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz are two of my favorite films, and not even considering that “Spaced” is my favorite collaboration between these guys, I’ve got high hopes for this one.

10. Stories We Tell (Canada, Polley) (Documentary)
Summary: A film that excavates layers of myth and memory to find the elusive truth at the core of a family of storytellers.

Wow. Could that summary sound any more ambitiously vague? This is a documentary Sarah Polley made about her own family, and all I’ve heard is praise to the high heavens. I’m intrigued to see how the director being so close to her subject matter impacts the overall film.

9. Laurence Anyways (Canada/France, Dolan)
Summary: The 10-year relationship of a male-to-female transsexual with her lover.

Xavier Dolan has accomplished a hell of a lot and made quite a name for himself despite being exceedingly young. I still have to see his previous work, but I trust his followers to have their adoration in the right place.

8. Something in the Air (France, Assayas)
Summary: In the months after the heady weeks of May ’68, a group of young Europeans search for a way to continue the revolution believed to be just beginning.

Olivier Assayas is one of my favorite working directors, no naturally I’ve been waiting on this one for a while. It’s also lovely to see that Lola Creton is making a name for herself. She’s such a find. Thanks Catherine Breillat.

7. The Bling Ring (USA, Coppola)
Summary: Inspired by actual events, a group of fame-obsessed teenagers use the internet to track celebrities’ whereabouts in order to rob their homes.

This looks like it’s going to be a culmination of Sofia Coppola’s previous focuses (a group of young girls, ennui, emptiness, fixation on fame) and fuel it into an offering that’s entirely new for her but recognizably executed. And it already suggests itself as an unintentional companion piece to Spring Breakers if only by the most basic of similarities. This was also the great DP Harris Savides’ last film before his death.

6. Berberian Sound Studio (UK, Strickland)
Summary: A sound engineer’s work for an Italian horror studio becomes a terrifying case of life imitating art.

This almost sounds like it was made for me and it’s another film that is finally getting a US release. Films that incorporate the importance of sound into their proceedings have a mark of paranoid obsession that draws me in. This looks like a conscious pastiche piece that calls back to low-key psychological horrors of yesteryear.

5. The Grandmaster (Hong Kong/China/France, Wong)
Summary: The story of martial-arts master Ip Man, the man who trained Bruce Lee.

I guess the ‘s’ has been dropped? New Wong Kar-Wai. Case closed. We’ve been waiting so long for this film, following its lengthy production process and the final product will unveil here this summer. Can we just appreciate the fact that this is is first film in four years, and his first feature length Hong Kong production since 2004? I don’t care if the notices have been merely solid. It’s been almost a decade since 2046!!

4. Only God Forgives (France/Denmark, Refn)
Summary: Julian, a drug-smuggler thriving in Bangkok’s criminal underworld, sees his life get even more complicated when his mother compels him to find and kill whoever is responsible for his brother’s recent death.

It’s safe to say everyone is on pins and needles wondering how Nicolas Winding Refn is going to assault our criminal senses next. His follow-up to Drive, and another collaboration with Ryan Gosling, will be an impressive feat if it manages to land in the same neon-lit mood-brood realm.

3. The Hunt (Denmark, Vinterberg)
Summary: A teacher lives a lonely life, all the while struggling over his son’s custody. His life slowly gets better as he finds love and receives good news from his son, but his new luck is about to be brutally shattered by an innocent little lie.

The films that usually make the top of my list are ones I’ve been waiting to see for what seems like an eternity. The Hunt is one of those; Was it really only last year that Mads Mikkelsen won Best Actor at Cannes for this? Basically there’s only two other films I’m anticipating more this season. Because of course….

2. Frances Ha (USA, Baumbach)
Summary: A story that follows a New York woman (who doesn’t really have an apartment), apprentices for a dance company (though she’s not really a dancer), and throws herself headlong into her dreams, even as their possible reality dwindles.

Noah Baumbach is my main man, surely one of the most divisive filmmakers working today. I’ve been fully on-board with his Jennifer Jason Leigh collaborations, films that contain explicitly unlikeable people at their centers. While others lambasted against him, I was on my knees in worship. With new collaborator Greta Gerwig, there is a clear shift in tone here with an emphasis on hipster-delight that has almost everyone back on his side even moving past its potentially obnoxious surface. Even people ready to hate him have seemed to adore this one, and everything I’ve heard has only made me more excited. It’s been a long time since he’s done a flat-out comedy and he does it like few others can.

1. Before Midnight (USA, Linklater)
Summary: We meet Jesse and Celine nine years on in Greece. Almost two decades have passed since their first meeting on that train bound for Vienna.

I still haven’t even begun to appreciate how lucky we are to be getting another check-in with Jesse and Celine. I’ve avoided everything about the film, and have managed to stay completely free of context thus far. All I know is that the reception has seemed to meet the impossible-to-reach expectations of the previous two. Before Sunset is, to me, one of the ten best films of the 2000′s. If Before Midnight can even be in the same ballpark, it’ll be a considerable achievement. But what am I saying? It’s already an achievement. Ethan Hawke, Julie Delpy and Richard Linklater have created my most cherished of  ‘franchises’ because they actually had the gall to think that maybe sequels don’t have to be about quests and good vs. evil, but simply about two people walking the romanticized  streets of blank, discussing everything under the sun.

Films Seen in 2013 Round-Up: #91-97

#91. In the House (2013, Ozon)

In the House will surely go down as one of my favorite 2013 films by year’s end. Right up there with Francois Ozon’s best work, a director who has avoided a solidified auteur status by climbing up and sliding around in genre playgrounds. But he deserves just as much attention, because let’s face it, we misuse and overuse the term as it is. His films lean toward an acerbic wit, adaptations of plays (In the House is an adaptation of Juan Moyarga’s The Boy in the Last Row) and playing with story deconstruction and manipulation whether carried out through his form or his characters. I went on an Ozon binge as a teenager and he remains one of my favorites. With In the House he reaches new heights, in a film that meta-intellectualizes the writing process, exploring our attachment to characters, the critical nature of tone and what happens when you get caught up in real life through fiction. This all sounds stodgy and overtly pleased with itself, but I assure you this is an entertaining class-conscious ride of melodrama and irony. I went into this not knowing anything, only knowing that it was the new Ozon film. And I was gripped from minute one all the way through to the perfect unpredictable, but ‘of course it needed to end this way’ final scene. In the midst of it all, there’s Ernst Umhauer, an alarmingly impactful new find. And he’s absolutely dreamy to boot.

#92. The English Teacher (2013, Zisk)
Full Review: http://cinenthusiast.wordpress.com/2013/04/26/tribeca-review-the-english-teacher-2013-zisk/

#93. The Burning (1981, Maylam)

I consider myself a pretty big fan of horror films, and even if I’m always game to give into my baser senses and watch them, the slasher has always been near the bottom of the preferential pack. The distilled hypocrisy of their formulas always irked me, but at the same time from a cultural standpoint they remain juicily revealing. Like almost every genre, my top picks rank among my favorites. Those would be Black Christmas, Sleepaway Camp and Alice, Sweet Alice. The Burning is a pleasant and consistently entertaining surprise, almost but not quite nailing that top-tier level. My checklist for slashers there needs to be a dated, kitschy or fun tone or I need to enjoy the pack of oblivious victims. The Burning hits both requirements.

The characters are a joy to hang out with, and the actors achieved a naturalistic and playful summer camp camaraderie.  Many folks judge slashers by the quality of their kills. Tom Savini does reliably solid work, though had little time to prepare, but the kills are standard fare. Luckily, the tone and interplay between characters matter more to me. You’ve also got some notable film debuts here; Jason Alexander, Holly Hunter and Fisher Stevens. Lead soap opera actor Brian Matthews is hero-hunk of the hour and Ratner from Fast Times at Ridgemont High gets saddled with the outcast role. Probably most notable for being the Friday the 13^th rip-off brainchild and one of the first Miramax films from the Weinstein’s, who produced and co-wrote. Friday the 13^th is highly over-appreciated. Seek this one out instead.

#94. Encore (1952, Jackson, French & Pelissier)

Encore is the third of three anthology films based on W. Somerset Maugham’s writings. The only one I now haven’t seen is the middle one, titled Trio. On the whole, Encore is just as accomplished as Quartet in bringing idiosyncratic vignettes to life, placing the emphasis on representing a literary perspective through film. The Maugham stories chosen tend to have a focus on the ways people can surprise you amidst established dynamics.

The first story, “The Ant and the Grasshopper”, is the weak link, mildly amusing and inconsequential with an unearned ironic ending. The second, “Winter Cruise”, is the best vignette of both Quartet and Encore combined. It is an ode to the persistence of character and unexpected attachment in the forced circumstances of shared company, with a genuinely rewarding ending, adding something to everything that came before. The last story, “Gigolo and Gigolette” deals with the ravenous hunger for tragedy from the haughty public. It is bookended with scenes from the perspectives of the splatter-hungry rich who flock to the venue on the off-chance the female lead’s risky diving feat will end in death. We then get to see the petrified state that has set into Glynis Johns’ mindset and how it affects her marriage to co-performer husband.

The thing about these barely known films is that their direction, which ranges from average to bungled, holds them back from becoming true successes within the realm of filmmaking. The reasons I love both of these films are the memorable stories being told through the short story form and the British character actors who are able to bring the characters to life (especially Kay Walsh whose ‘Molly Reid’ I’ll never forget). However the medium is never utilized to enhance, instead reduced to basic image capturing. It’s a big reason these films haven’t been remembered, which is unfortunate because there’s a lot to get out of them.

#95. Prince of Darkness (1987, Carpenter)

Mid-range John Carpenter impresses by working to the filmmaker’s strengths, his palpable fixation with theoretical physics and atomic theory on full display. He achieves sustained dread through synths and anamorphic lenses, accumulating to an explosion of disturbing abstract imagery complete with Cocteau homage. Second in his apocalypse trilogy, Carpenter thrives off of putting his characters in an enclosed space to fight off evils that slowly become cognizant to the characters as they come together and split apart. That set-up works here because the hive mind of the group offsets Carpenter’s weak spot for writing individual characters. Donald Pleasance has first billing as ‘Priest’ but he never feels present in the slightest. If it weren’t Pleasance in the role he would have received a bit part billing. The developing relationship between mustachioed Jameson Parker and frigid Lisa Blount is established then amusingly dropped. I especially loved Parker’s apparently correct prognosis of frigidity came from her being rightly offended by a sexist jab he makes. Yes, clearly this means she is humorless and dead to the world around her.

The middle section treads a lot of water with the possessed students roaming around taking others over with Linda Blair look-alike Susan Blanchard at the helm. It makes the threat corporeal in a repetitive and uninventive way, which wears thin after a while.

The reasons Prince of Darkness impress are the constant blatant imagery contrasting the scientific lab equipment set-up within the holy space of the church. Most impressive is the climax which mystifies in its atypical form, representing some of the best work in John Carpenter’s career.

#96. Cutter’s Way (1981, Passer)

Cutter’s Way is an uncut gem, one of the best American films of the 80’s, flying completely under the radar since its limited release in 1982. I had heard of it a couple of years ago amongst fellow dedicated treasure-seekers, and the hyperbolic acclaim was through the roof. Believe the long-deserved but still dreadfully unconsummated ballyhoo about this undiscovered classic. A character study with its own matchless identity of damaged individuals bound together by unimpeachable and unspoken personal history and codependency. None of these characters are healthy for the other, but they stay loyal for better and worse.  The set-up for a conventional thriller is established only to be abolished, using its genre fake-out to explore the ambiguous maybe-delusions of crippled patchy-eyed alcoholic Vietnam vet Cutter, played by John Heard in a remarkable piece of acting. I will never primarily see him as Mr. McAllister again.

These maybe-delusions are an outlet for his unsuppressed rage at the world and his experiences in it, a misguided effort to reclaim the long lost (ever there?) hero within him. He’s a volatile unreachable mess of a human, beyond repair. Along for the ride is indecisive best friend Bone, an excellent and often gloriously shirtless Jeff Bridges. Despite being known for keeping his distance from trouble and conflict, his life is built out of decidedly running in place. The third member of this codependent group is fellow depressed alcoholic Mo (Lisa Eichhorn, rounding out this trio of superb performances), a committed defeatist who picks her battles but always loses. The only anomaly is the Ann Dusenberry character, whose presence feels forced and disjointed from the rest of the proceedings. The open ending cements both the ambiguity and the loyalty of the central friendship in a heart-wrenching coda.

#97. Modern Girls (1986, Kramer)

Modern Girls completely won me over through its flamboyant immersion into the then-present 80’s, the kind of film that needed decades to ripen and amass a following. It’s a conventional wild-night-out film that sees its three archetypal women (Virginia Madsen, Daphne Zuniga, Cynthia Gibb) getting into all sorts of hijinks as they run from club to club with unwitting male Cliff (Clayton Rohner). Its appeal lies in the dated culture shock, the youths of L.A represented by three idealized women. These women are written as the kind of ‘cool’ that young women would aspire to be. Hell, I found myself wishing I could be Margo. Their fashion sense, which I think holds up in its funky way, and obscenely confident demeanor (at least on the outside) give way to dream lives that writer Laurie Craig tries to make relatable through their oh-so-woeful work weeks as they waltz through dead-end jobs.

On the outset, all they care about are men, but thankfully there’s some nice work done towards the end to offset their priorities by challenging the characters to favor long-standing friendships and daring to want things for themselves. If made today, I likely wouldn’t care much about Modern Girls. But this 1986 cult film is abundantly quirky and lively with a lot of neon dated character impossible to resist. Its female-centric focus also feels relatively rare for 80’s teen comedies. All in all, I adored the hell out of this one.

Tribeca Review: The English Teacher (2013, Zisk)

The English Teacher will be released in theaters May 17th.

Beneath the artificial layers of lighthearted whimsy and lovelorn sheepishness found in TV veteran Craig Zisk’s feature film debut The English Teacher, there’s a curdling belittlement that spoils like a rotten egg. Though to be fair, the artificial layers are caked on like tasteless butter to begin with.

When Julianne Moore’s middle-aged, bespectacled waif of a schoolteacher makes a couple of arguably questionable and ill-advised life choices, apparently all bets are off. The question for screenwriters Dan and Stacy Chariton should have then been, ‘how can we make a lively backstage romantic comedy of age-inappropriate errors?’ Instead they asked themselves ‘what can we do to put our so-called heroine Linda Sinclair, (and by extension Julianne Moore), through the wringer’, because clearly she deserves it.

Films with such fundamentally wrong-headed intentions fill me with a cloudy rage that can be difficult to parse through. With cloyingly conceitedness, The English Teacher’s one true desire is to sitcom its way into people’s hearts. There are plenty of ways to do that without treating the main character so condescendingly it negates the entire film but that’s just what Zisk does. Maybe if the film had satirical aspirations, subversive undertones or anything like an underlying purpose, an artistic case could be made. There are certainly many great films that do not take their characters’ very serious plight seriously, but The English Teacher hangs in zero gravity; it isn’t trying to say or do anything other than taking blind stabs at manufactured pleasantry.

The condescension starts right out the gate as a Regency-evoking elderly woman narrates this substandard tale of small-town shenanigans. Our gimmicky narrator, who is heard precisely three times, paints a picture of Linda’s life as satisfying but ultimately tragic and hopeless because she’s destined for spinsterhood. The patronizing tone is all but evident in these first scenes. The British narrator takes the perspective away from Linda in her own narrative, introducing her as someone we are immediately meant to feel sorry for. As groceries for one are scanned, yet another first date goes poorly, and lonely Linda trudges on reading books and teaching class, we are somehow meant to sigh; ‘poor thing’.

One fateful night, Linda mistakenly pepper sprays Jason (Michael Angarano), a former student who recently moved back to Kingston after graduating from the NYU dramatic arts program and failing to get his play produced in New York. His father Tom (Greg Kinnear) wants Jason to go to law school and so he plans to quit writing and resign himself to his future. His unproduced play is called The Chrysalis, and after offering to read it, Linda is awed by its brilliance. Nathan Lane’s high school drama teacher Dr. Kapinas (referred to by students as “Kapenis”), reacts to the play as the plot requires, wanting to stage it as their next production immediately after reading, and once Jason is hesitantly onboard, all systems are go. Here the romantic entanglements start between the unadorned Moore, ingénue student Lilly Collins, the conflicted moody playwright Angarano and the stuck-up Kinnear. Now The English Teacher goes from sugary sedateness with some nicely played scenes between Moore and Angarano, to capital punishment comeuppance.

The story shows no interest in Linda’s age-difference-be-dammed feelings or her obvious connection with Jason’s father, only the rat’s nest scenario in which Linda’s name gets dragged through the mud. Only then, only when she’s hit rock bottom, can she earn her chance at love. Linda has to lose everything as each and every character slings unconscionable verbal abuse her way. Meekly and silently accepting this as somehow deserved, she then has to and grovel for forgiveness for (gasp) having desires and making a couple of poor judgments. And while her initial actions are treated as the most damnable, her real flaw lies in the way she handles the aftermath.

Only one character ever apologizes to Linda with nobody else ever having to answer for the way they treat her over the course of the film. Both screenwriters and director are guilty of spending half the film doling out punishment loaded with latent, sexist hypocrisy and dressing it up as humble comedic blunder. Nasty characters do nasty things to the underserving all the time in film as in life, but there’s a huge difference between purposeful story-driven themes, character-driven behavior, and whatever you might call this.

At one point Lilly Collins’ character Halle even calls out the double standard the filmmakers actively encourage before resigning herself to an ‘it is what it is’ shrug as Linda preaches the importance of ladies sticking together (this only minutes before a development that has every female acting like a possessive maniac).

The vanilla pudding of The English Teacher covers up a mean-spirited undertone that never attempts to justify itself, turning a problematic romantic comedy with some potential into an unwarranted bullying contest.

Originally published at CINE OUTSIDER: http://www.cineoutsider.com/

Films Seen in 2013 Round-Up: #86-90

#86. The Phantom Tollbooth (1970, Jones)

That The Phantom Tollbooth should conceivably work as an animated feature is a no-brainer. Norton Juster’s turn-of-phrase festivities make ‘Tollbooth’ one of my favorite books, a justifiable classic that enchants children and adults alike, accompanied by Jules Feiffer’s crude scrawled majesty. Chuck Jones, master of the slam-bang formula cartoons plus slapstick equals hilarity gold, directed one feature film, and this was it. I worship the man and his accomplishments, but Juster’s let’s-appreciate-the-play-of-exercising-your-mind through wit doesn’t jive with Jones’ strengths. Jones innovated by boiling down his basic formula to its essentials and then running wild by playing to his audience with direct visual humor and pushing into a realm of abstractness through repetition and punctuation. The reason his other Norton Juster adaptation, The Dot and the Line: A Romance in Lower Mathematics, works so well is because it’s a visual piece, a concept that adheres to what a cartoonist with immense imagination can do.

The Phantom Tollbooth is, and forgive me for oversimplifying, a book-long play-on-words, so what is there really for Chuck Jones to do? He isn’t able to bring it to life, despite the fact that Milo does visit potentially rich conceptual lands. I sadly don’t have anything good to say about the film. The animation lacks character and to liven it up, lots and lots of snooze songs are added. The only one that left any residue was “Milo’s Song” for its dated harmonious pondering. Tock’s character design and voice were genuinely off the mark. It looked like a human face on a dog and his voice had a straightforward stateliness that may have worked if they had gone farther in that direction. A mismatch of source material and director from the start; a book and artist I admire without end separately, but put them together and you have a watery bowl of stale word soup.

#87. Antiviral (2013, Cronenberg)

Full Review: http://cinenthusiast.wordpress.com/2013/04/22/review-antiviral-2013-cronenberg/

88. Top of the Lake (2013, Campion & Davis)

Prolific Jane Campion’s feminist noir deals with the festering effects of resurfaced trauma set ablaze in a haunting New Zealand landscape of scumbag misogyny. Its blunt weapons come alive through its exploration of the unquestioned normalcy of such imbalances and it’s all disguised as a whodunnit procedural. Some of the most potent thematic and characterization work in recent memory, as its emotionally turbulent townies exonerate themselves by merely being less morally corrupt than your neighbor. The passed down rituals of the alpha male surround a patriarchal world where staking territorial claim and asserting control gives way to power and status no matter the barbaric context.

But it’s not even about the overt horrific ways in which men post a threat to women. It also looks at the other end of the threat spectrum. Top of the Lake captures in ways I haven’t seen the inherent daily threats women can feel amongst men, whether purposeful on their part or not. It captures the instinctual act of tensing up, keeping your guard up whether intentionally provoked or not. It’s rare to see that evoked and examined in any storytelling so bravo to Campion and co-creator Gareth Lee for that.

The last hour is somewhat shaky as prioritized thematic and character concerns move over for some weak conclusive plotting where ‘twists’ are seen acres away. A small complaint in an otherwise exactingly bleak and contemplative look at latent atrocity adapted as normalcy. Special mentions to Elisabeth Moss and one of my favorite actors, Peter Mullan for some of the most rigorous and spectacular acting you’ll see. Matt Mitcham will stay with me for some time.

#89. Topaz (1969, Hitchcock)

Between the fallout of the Tippi Hedren fiasco and the rushed and unwanted star-ridden production of Torn Curtain, Hitchcock was essentially pushed into making Topaz by Alma and Universal Studios, who he was then contracted to. But with major script issues and a boatload of varied location shooting, Topaz was being rewritten by Samuel Taylor on the fly, an unfortunate circumstance for both director and writer that went against every single method of meticulous planning used by Hitchcock throughout the decades. The predicament was essentially his own directorial nightmare and the result can be seen. The shot above is the only truly noteworthy moment (and clearly because the only thing that could get his attention was of course a woman being strangled) in a film filled with elliptical plot mechanics, complicated espionage, a bevy of stolid characters and an international cast that failed to ignite emotion. And that’s what Hitch was all about; suspense, images and pulling out emotive responses from his audience. This overlong, overworked project doesn’t give him an opportunity to do that outside of a well-done opening sequence.

#90. Frenzy (1972, Hitchcock)

Later Hitchcock films, starting with Vertigo I’d say, carry an unhinged, deeply personal and highly cathartic (but never absolved) expression of repressed sadistic and sexual violence. The master dealt with his sadistic desires and fascinations through his lifelong dedication to the macabre. As it’s been said, he treated his murder scenes like love scenes and vice versa. Many books have been written about, or address this, and it is clear that with Frenzy he reached a disturbing apex of depicting the act of murder. This is an ugly, nihilistic piece of work, where a pervading boundary-pushing glee coats all, nowhere more than that first murder scene.

Total wincing immersion into the struggle, attainment and release comes with our killer’s rape and murder. It’s the most graphic and revealing, in more ways than one, scene of its kind that he ever shot. It’s undeniably effective and technically masterful in its focus of building momentum, perspective and perfecting the permanence of the dead stare, now complete with tongue leakage.

His obsession with scenes of this kind (especially later in life when he became unnaturally fixated on including rape in Marnie, this and the unmade The Short Night) and shared intent with the serial killer character makes you feel uncommonly involved in the scene. It goes beyond being a complicit observer and enters a participatory dominion. But he makes us complicit in his own readily apparent fascinations, fears, and desires, which his genius made universally communicable through the language of film. Though he’s at his most troubling and directly misogynistic here, it’s an effective and engaging work, and a return to form after the useless Torn Curtain and Topaz. This despite a frustratingly remote and sullied lead whose only purpose seems to be to represent everyday commonalities between the actual serial killer, and the potential within man to slip into said role. His first British production in decades, his country of origin, and his relationship with it, informs the film on many levels. Food is used to link sex and death throughout, never more apparent than an obsidian-drenched comic sequence involving a corpse hidden in a sack full of potatoes.

Review: Antiviral (2013, Cronenberg)

Just because taking a swing at our swarming addiction to celebrity is a can’t-miss target, doesn’t make it any less pertinent. And just because we can lay a falsely prideful claim that, no, we don’t know what’s going on in the lives of the Kardashians, doesn’t make us any less culpable. There’s a line in Brandon Cronenberg’s sickly little debut Antiviral that stands as its central statement, and it is the film’s biggest takeaway. One character calls celebrity “a collaboration we choose to take part in”.

It’s a piercing statement because it rings true in a more openly direct way than other kinds of pot shots. Just because you don’t read tabloids, doesn’t mean you and I aren’t taking part in the collective. It pervades everywhere, through involvement in casual gossip and speculation, fandom, idolization, victimization and on and on. It’s not necessarily something to feel guilty about, as it’s out of our individual hands, but it is there.  Antiviral posits what the next step is. What opportunity, if given, could serve as a new level of celebrity commodification? How to complete the connection and devotion people feel towards certain mega-stars?

In Antiviral, competing clinics harvest viruses and illnesses from celebrities and puts them on the market for those willing to pay for injections. From them to you: one degree of separation.  It is a disturbingly intimate process, not to mention anything about the context of said shared fluids.  The ultimate marriage of devotion and masochism. The news is littered with the latest embarrassing celebrity snafu and all the characters are caught up in events not theirs. Even the clinic employees are not above the bullshit and their water-cooler substitution setting is the line to pick up various infection strands.

One employee is the cryptic freckle-faced Syd (Caleb Landry Jones), representing the Lucas Clinic. We soon learn he injects himself with viruses to smuggle them out and sell them on the black market to a man named Arvid (Joe Pingue). After a co-worker is arrested, he is sent to make a house call to one of the Clinic’s star contributors Hannah Geist (Sarah Gadon) who is looking to sell her latest illness. But when Syd takes a sample from the incapacitated Hannah, and decides to inject himself without knowing what it is, things get hairy. Soon word leaks that Hannah has died from said unidentified virus, making the now-infected Syd highly sought after.

This is the kind of debut where my interest lies more in the promise of Brandon Cronenberg’s future endeavors, rather than outright praise for his first effort. The ingenious concept gets him far, which strikes a balance between being amusingly outlandish and legitimately plausible. One detail I love is that the process seems reserved for only the tippity-top superstars. It brings to mind when Scarlett Johannson appeared on Jay Leno several years ago with a cold.  She blew into a tissue which she then signed, and sold it for $5,300 that went to charity. Like I said: plausible. There are many other treats and insights into the habitual meat-market of celebrity culture, such as a literal meat market, skin grafting, copyright discussion and a machine that puts a distorted face onto viruses.

If the plot trajectory feels pedestrian and the characters empty ciphers, it’s because the focus is on an underworked tone. Since celebrity as an abstract is the name of the game, the characters don’t have discerning characteristics outside their immediate actions. They live and die by their clients and all conversations stem around them. The tone maintains an assuredness, but strikes a been-there done-that vibe of obvious clinical white non-color palettes and timed beats between sentences of dialogue. The body horror aspect, a type of horror that the young filmmaker’s father has commanded in the past, and a type that will always resonate with me, isn’t explored enough. Body horror gets its mileage out of the details of fleshly decay. Outside of a few hallucinatory images that stand out, the virus makes up a largely vague bodily takeover.

Thankfully, Caleb Landry Jones in the lead is exactly the kind of presence needed for a character that is a cipher more than anything else. He’s got the uncompromising stare and offbeat face of a Calvin Klein model. With his hunched posture, punctured cheekbones and pale unblinking canvas of a face, like a cross between Crispin Glover and Burn Gorman, Jones helps significantly to keep Antiviral afloat. He’s the kind of actor that wears ambiguity like a shadowy glove, diving into his role as smeared blood and disheveled hair replace stoic stateliness.

It all comes back to the “collaboration we choose to take part in”. Antiviral may not be able to capitalize on its potential through its unflappable commitment to an undercooked and somewhat obvious tonal monotony, but its ideas, lead actor and intermittent moments of merit carry it through a steady intrigue. More importantly, the question is what does Brandon Cronenberg have up his sleeve in the future? His debut convinced me to anticipate the answer.