there's more here than you might comfortably care to to know about any mother, but The Mother (2003), richly deserves her telling. director Roger Michell's work is fascinating to observe (Enduring Love, Notting Hill) and frequently distinctive for it's deadly brutal human accuracy (Amanda Peet's brief restaurant scene in Changing Lanes deserves a special award for sheer whallop alone). abreast of co-star Daniel Craig, british actress Anne Reid (a tour de fource performance ) embodies a bleached - yet lingering - beauty as she undertakes the sobering journey of the title character, an examination of societal and family bounds, self-perception and sexual passion reclaimed. this is a wise, masterful film layered in rich, natural light and sounds, often as beautiful as it is excruciating.
i can't seem to help myself: i confess to a compulsion for penning elaborate draft treatments of imagined sequels of my favorite all-time films. sure enough, i've done it for Forbidden Planet, Body Heat, and even The Thing, but in the case of Invaders from Mars (1953), my obsession hit an all-time high, actually getting all the way to a shooting script and even a short intro reel. drafting a handful cast of long-suffering friends, i was determined to re-master the Menzies sci-fi classic (son of rocket scientist staves off an army of giant green mutants) with my own, updated homage, picking up the original storyline thirty-some years later, where young David is now a middle-aged newspaper reporter dogged by (you guessed it) a terrible mounting suspicion and those "darn headaches". oh well - all trademark and copyright infringements aside, it was sure fun while it lasted...
what is it about children and insane asylums that warms my heart? Walter Murch is a marvelously reknown film technician, who has attached his name and considerable talents to films ranging from Apocalypse Now, The Unbearable Lightness of Being and The English Patient (let's throw in The Godfather: Part 3 in for good measure). as Director, his name can be applied to only one: Return to Oz (1985). this curiously strange, enchanting work is clearly a labor of love, and - to say the least - the most literal and authentic adaptation of the original Oz stories by Frank L. Baum to date. but beware: this is not the candy slice you were ever allowed to keep from your halloween beggings as a child. nonetheless it is a sweet and savory find indeed - though definitely of a distinctly dark confection. Pumpkin heads, knome kings, evil witches, homesick girls, friends made in far-off off land. enjoy this rich and rare ride, you will find few that compare to it. fyi: here's an excellent unabridged audio book of Baum's original tale available at Audible.com, if you're interested.
karma, fate, faith - oh, those sisters.Jill and Karen Sprecher (director/writer and writer, respectively) filmed their exquisite Thirteen Conversations About One Thing (2001) in only eight short weeks, even after money problems forced them to chop their budget in half and then their shooting schedule by a week. a stunning ensemble cast (notably Alan Arkin, Clea DuVall, and Matthew McConaughey, among many others) shape a small raft of lives afloat in New York City, all in search of an certain elusive something. i have always loved and adored film - a tender thing to be just sitting there and have one kiss me back. this film is a gift, one of the best of the year (nice interview with Jill here, Reel.com).
for my way of thinking, one of the most stirring aspects of director Isao Takahata's remarkable Grave of the Fireflies (1988) is not so much that it is anime, but that such a story would even be chosen to be depicted in anime, rather than conventional live-action. as such, it becomes a painting within a heart, and such a very haunted one. working from the popular semi-autobiographical novel by Akiyuki Nosaka, the film depicts the civilian firebombing of Japan in late WWII, and within it, the struggle to survive of orphans Seita and his young sister Setsuko. bombs, death, grief, cartoons all. and i have never encountered two characters more memorable, or real, in any other film.
Dreamchild (1985) may be the very last commercial film i still own on VHS tape – a sweet, melancholy favorite of mine – that is still unavailable on DVD. the fictionalized account of a 1932 New York visit by Alice Liddell Hargreaves (who as a child 70 years earlier had inspired Lewis Carroll to write Alice in YouKnowWhat), the movie features a standout performance by actress Coral Browne (as the elderly Alice), as well as cameos from some of the most noteworthy non-humans in classic children's literature (furnished in lurid detail by Jim Henson's Creature Shop). yum. spun of dark dreams, sunny recollections and just the slightest tug towards a dark corner, the story offers us a gratifying, wisftully romantic take on this monumentus friendship, doubtless a version than Dodgson's many real-life biographers (here Wikipedia) will likely ever so graciously provide.
there's "art", and then there's art. Babe: Pig in the City (1998) is the latter. that audiences arrived expecting to see a cute talking pig sequel and found instead an all-animal cast version of The Shining, is of little concern. art. hatched from the fascinating frontal lobe of director/co-writer George Miller, the film departs the Hollywood cookie-cutter at every available juncture, an alternating odyssey, allegory and proberb. it's no wonder viewers didn't know what to think: the Mickey Rooney sequence is surreal, chase with the pit bull mildly disturbing, the orangetan character outrageously odd. nonetheless, auteurs take heart: Wikipedia notes Film critic Gene Siskel named it as his choice for the best film of 1998. fyi: Animal Logic was but one of the many fx teams enlisted for the film's countless effects, and their flash site totally rocks. art.
i won't waste the breath adding my recommendation to see Capote (2005) now that Philip Seymour Hoffman has his oscar - gorgeous stuff, though. Capote's relationshop with killer Perry Smith had been the stuff of literary legend for years, as were the iconic studio photographs (depicted briefly in the film) snapped of Perry and Truman by LIFE Magazine photog Richard Avedon in 1965. imagine my surprise when i recently stumbled across a copy of that original contact sheet. medium format, sweet.
i've had a serious bug for movie posters since i was a kid, buying them back when the only reliable source was sending away to one or two obscure, east coast mail order houses. i only recently let the last of my collection go (a wonderful, rare 3-sheet of Brain from Planet Arous), surrenderied finally to a lack of wall space, disposable income and the inevitable "what do i do with all this shit?". nice to have the web to keep an eye out for such treasures, however, where i may still window shop - and grab a handful or two of images for the old desktop. poster shops abound these days, but Trader Deke's and Heritage Auction are two somewhat lessor known venues, both brimming treasure droves.
an eternal contender for scariest film ever, The Haunting (1963) is also an excellent adaptation of the classic Shirley Jackson novel, no minor feat in itself. from the first moments of its prologue (a brooding architectural overview of The House captured in infrared black and white film) director Robert Wise succeeds in casting a perfectly nerve-splitting spell, part paranoia, part slowly-mounting hysteria, and all parts legendary in their "don't show" approach, a style that has continued to bolster the film's chilling reputation for the near half-century since its release. first-time visitors to the Crane mansion: enjoy. returning guests are invited to soak up the Director's Commentary: juicy background details from Wise, actress Julie Harris and several other original cast members. truly scary fun.
consider the The Machinist(2004) something of a flawed, minor masterpiece: a smart, creepy screenplay, phenomenal art direction and, least of not, killer performance by Christian Bale. this is a tantalizing, mentally-ill melange of dread, memory and flawed human perception, all echoed through the emaciated soul of its title character (yes, Bale shed 63 pounds for the role, said to have been achieved from a diet consisting of a single can of tuna + one apple each day for 3 months). director Brad Anderson can deservedly gloat. evidence that such a prize is not easily had is his earlier Session 9 (2001), an ambitious project of equal promise (at least for the first 30 minutes) that soon spirals into a complete, incomprehensible mess, straight to home-video hell.
love 'em or hate 'em, Ma and Pa Kettle left their mark on Hollywood, one that began with The Egg and I (1947), a film based on Betty MacDonald's then-popular memoir of the same name, and starred Majorie Main and Percy Kilbride as the original neighbors from Hell. MacDonald's farm was (and still is, sort of) just off Route 19 on Washington's Olympic Peninsula - about 60 miles from Tacoma in a place named Chimacum (here's a map). although audiences seemed slow to tire of their cinematically inbred antics (appearing in no less than ten such films), the real-life Ma and Kettle weren't laughing, and sued MacDonald, her publisher and even The Bon Marché in a series of well-publicized lawsuits. here's a little Wikipedia read on that topic, and one more on MacDonald herself.
most people have nailed Blade Runner (1982) on their best-ever list, and, likewise, most know it's based on Philip K. Dick's novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? here's a new Electric Sheep in the fold: this one is a free, open source screen saver run by thousands of people all over the world and can be installed on any ordinary PC or Mac. When these computers "sleep", the screen saver comes on to allow other computers communicate with one another (via the internet) to share creating abstract animations known as "sheep". The result is a collective "android dream", an homage to Dick's novel. creepy cool.
i relish - highly - the old Dragnet episodes, especially when Joe Friday deems it fit to unload on one of his captive stable of con-atists, hippies, punks, or drug gurus. unfortunate that these days its creator, Jack Webb, is best remembered as a clitche' chain-smoking cop, for there was a time when he was hailed (and rightfully so) as one of the most innovative and exciting new talents in the biz. by the time he was tracking down "Blue Boy" (The LSD Story, 1967), however, Webb was slowly nearing his decline, and soon to begin churning out his TV shows by the pound (with a lack of spontaneity and passion that would have done Broderick Crawford proud). only hardcore fans were aware that some of the most popular episodes were recycled from his earlier 50's programs, which, in turn, had occasionally been lifted from even earlier radio incarnations. one example: the Dragnet 1967 episode of The Christmas Story, earlier titled The Big Baby Jesus (1953), both of which were based on an original Dragnet radio drama.
The Reflecting Skin (1990) is a film notorious for it's subject matter (or lack) and may well be every bit the pretentious crap so many others have described it as. nonetheless, it is certainly one that has stuck with me all these years, and not just because it's so damned weird (which it is). while not blind to writer/director Philip Ridley's (The Krays) desire of bizarre for its own sake, i would also contend that he provides a hidden key to the workings of this strange and ugly dream: a second layer where everything we see and hear operates like a nightmare in reverse. or not.
between his efforts with Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969) and his oscar win for The Sting (1973), director George Roy Hill tackled Slaughterhouse Five (1972) - obviously on quite a roll. with not a rocketship, robot, raygun or monster to be had, Vonnegut's WW II story of Billy Pilgrim, who has come 'unstuck in time', still rides high on the list of best sci-fi films, winning both a Hugo Award and the Prix du Jury at the '72 Cannes. described by the author himself as "flawless", it remains as seamless a transition of book to film as one might ever hope, aided by the clever imagery of cinematographer Miroslav Ondrícek (Amadeus 1984) and its playfully memorable score, courtesy of Glenn Gould and Johann Sebastian Bach. alas, all faces who have now passed largely from view, if not from life. so it goes.
if you're new to the work of Takeshi Kitano, Zatôichi (2003) is not a bad stepping off point, if only a mildy audacious one, as is his style. based upon the classic series of Blind Swordsman stories and films, this is choice samauri stuff, with Kitano's quirky imagination for violence fueling a clever succession of slow burns and near-instant (but perfectly choreographed) annihilations. that it may open the door for you to Kitano's other works is better yet, and most notably Sonatine (1993), Fireworks (1998), and Dolls (2002). cited as a "Japanese comedian, actor, author, poet, painter, one-time video game designer and film director" (and regarded out of his director's seat as Beat Takeshi) this is a guy whose appetite for artistic mischief appears be both energetic and endless, despite his amusingly stoic veneer.
you're probably already hip to PANDORA, the self-customizing radio station available online through your browser, and if not, come running. merely by selecting a particular singer (or song) will program Pandora to play you a succession of music tailored exactly to your selection's style or mood. hatched by the ingenious minds of the Music Genome Project, this is the coolest new thing i've run across online for many a moon (i'm listening to it right now).
some films, such as All the Little Animals (1998), defy brief description, except to say in this case that the movie features Christen Bale (Batman Begins, The Machinist, American Psycho) in an early role, and a very good one. John Hurt has a part in this exotic little yarn as well, but it is Daniel Benzali, as 'The Fat', who truly distinguishes himself as perhaps one of the slimiest of all-time villians. very weird, in a sweet way.
if you look around a bit, you may spot this oldie, Don't Look Now (1973), perhaps on a shelf filed under 'Psychic Thrillers'. directed by Nicolas Roeg only a year or so after he completed Walkabout, it is on the must-see list for anyone who appreciates a smart and well-photographed shocker. i mention this because it really is one of the creepiest films ever, and also because there's word out that Alan Scott (who wrote the original), is himself now adapting the screeplay for a remake due out in 2007.
the very best films, and Body Heat (1981) is surely one of them, can be viewed and enjoyed countless times over, to be savored scene by scene and then frame by frame. the first feature to be written and directed by Lawrence Kasdan, it's not only one of his best, it's also the only time you'll ever see William Hurt, Kathleen Turner, Richard Crenna, Ted Danson, J.A. Preston and Mickey Rourke together on the same screen. and where else, besides Double Indemnity, would you hear such classic noir dialogue as this? simply the best. god, how i love this film.
The Hidden(1987). three years before he ever hit the tube as Twin Peaks' oddball FBI Agent Cooper, Kyle MacLachlan was honing that persona as the oddball FBI Agent Gallager (yes, from Seattle) in this often overlooked but throughly enjoyable scifi-action film. that it never takes itself too seriously, is a good thing too, especially considering the body count, which is considerable. director Jack Sholder's commentary has its crackup moments as well, but never so much as to steal the show from its tidy little cast, and none so outright hilarious as seeing veteran (and perennial) co-star William Boyett taking his turn as the rampaging alien, having lots more fun killing and maiming than he ever did working the desk on all of those old Dragnet episodes.
Till Human Voices Wake Us (2002) is a haunting, melancholy film, starring Guy Pierce and Helena Bonham Carter, that i ran across on cableview a couple years back. directed by Michael Petroni (The Dangerous Lives of Alter Boys) it follows a young Melbourne psychology prof (Pierce) back to his childhood home where he confronts - what? for its morbid and romantic heart, i admire the film greatly, and (as is the case with so many UK films) was very curious when i learned of the existence of an original Aussie version out there, a cut that reportedly shuffled the central timeline of the film into a totally different order. i went about looking for the DVD, and at last made an enlightening discovery, two-fold: the special edition DVD with both Australian & USA cuts, and Madman Films, an Aussie enterprise and gold mine of great and (often obscure) cinema.
A Face in the Crowd(1957). prior to my seeing this film, any opinion i had of andy griffith had long since been filed away, likely somewhere between gilligan's island and gomer pyle. stupid, ignorant me. A Face in the Crowd has been called a hidden masterpiece of the latter 20th century, and i would agree. without doubt it is one of the most socially relevant films of it's latter half-century, and so ingeniously current in terms of cinematic style and subject matter that it could have been made in the 1997 instead of 1957.
Griffith was born for this role, and it for him (one part Andy of Mayberry, two parts Charlie Manson), and so masterfully embodies it that the faint resemblance to any characters in his later career could only have been derived by their having suffered a lobotomy or chemical castration.
today i rationed out the last of Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach, an audiobook i've been enjoying for the past couple weeks (note A: while not actually read aloud by madame Roach herself, narrator Shelly Frasier is her perfect vocal match). this thoroughly delightful book is quite a tour-de force on an otherwise inanimate topic, and inspires both giggles and nauseum aplenty, as well as an upchurned awe for the remarkable amount of statistical knowledge that Roach is able to impart between her numerous (and reliably hilarious) sarcastic asides. at the bidding of her finely-honed journalistic nose, Roach escorts us about the dead and dying globe as we are introduced to a positively singular list of undertakers, grave robbers, necrophiliacs and crash-site statistitians, a hereto who-knows-who on the topic, which includes transplant pioneers such as Vladimir Demikhov (note B: Demikhov's historic experiment took place in Russia on feb. 24, 1954 - across the planet on that same afternoon, Dale and Tillie Hinds were hosting the birth of their beloved second son, Geffrey). all serendipity aside, this is fun stuff, and brilliantly rendered.
that Billy Bob Thornton's Slingblade (1996) is a modern classic would go largely undisputed. but few may have had the opportunity to see Thornton's original 20-minute play, Some Folks Call It a Sling Blade (1994), upon which the full-length film was later based. this tiny black & white drama, directed by George Hickenlooper (Hearts of Darkness, The Brass Ring), takes place entirely in the psychiatric hospital where the longer film only begins, and stars Molly Ringwald (as the young reporter) and J.T. Walsh in the identical role he would later duplicate in SB the latter. as much as the feature version may deserve its high praise, the '94 short still packs a considerable whallop and, for my two cents, succeeds in distilling Thonton's Karl character down to his bare little essence, with no further story required. judge for yourself.
Gohatto, 1999 by director Nagisa Oshima. this tale explores the waning days of Japan's samurai warrior class in the late 1800s, and specifically, a young samurai, Kano, and the curious effect his uncommon beauty has upon on his stealth and fellow fighters. as graceful and keen - and cold - as a razors edge, this is a contemplation upon the nature of beauty and male vulnerablilty, and one captured in images of a rare cinematic splendor. by my estimate the end shot alone is worth the trip of the entire film – nothing short of stunning, really – as it serves to frame a serene and lovely film in a visually perfect metaphor. enough said.
logged another film noir, The Set-Up,on the long list. a rather magnificent one this time, a '49 masterpiece from Robert Wise. this one is a palookaville story, and one rendered in REAL TIME as well - mind you, this is 50-some years before Jack Bauer and "24"- an element the director graciously reminds us (be careful and take an extra minutes listening to the director's track) in his bookend opening and closing shots. it all happens in just 72 minutes, on the Big Clock. like wow.
Ratcatcher (1999) was the debut feature of UK class of '95 film grad Lynne Ramsay, and one that immediately distinguished her as a force to be reckoned with. the film, framed in Glasgow during a garbagemens strike in 1973, is that of James, a troubled boy played by 12-year-old William Eadie, a non-professional whom Ramsay is said to have cast after auditioning over 1,000 other hopefuls. Ramsay's own training (first as a photographer) imparts a rich visual style to the film, but it is her honest, subtle - and no less intuitive - attention to it's various characters that makes the film shine, as she and Eades slip across a canvas that is slow and painful poetry to behold. for these reasons the film is one of my very favorites, and smarts like a skinned, bleeding shin.
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