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Play Misty for Me: When free love goes wrong . . . I mean really wrong

In 1993 a teenage Alicia Silverstone stalked Cary Elwes and scared us all straight. Too bad the lessons of the 70s didn't last and we weren't saved from Ms. Silverstone. In 1971 free love was dead, dried up and blowing away. But the left coast hot jazz scene still had a beat, and here we find Clint Eastwood playing smooth talking DJ Dave. He winds up getting stalked by a crazed fan after having a one night stand with her.

I don't have much to say about the movie other than two things I love about 70s movies: long hand held shots, or long slow zooms; and excessively amplified ambient sound, such as shuffling papers, footsteps on gravel and doors moving.

You could skip this picture or maybe watch because it is Eastwood's directorial debut.

One more

The Lives of Others is awesome.

Responses

Charlie Sheen's finest work is found in Wall Street. He supplies sufficient surprise and bewilderment to playing a naive young man sniffing cocaine in the back of a limo with a hooker.

Coppola's early peak is an interesting topic. He is always included as an American master, but couldn't recapture his early career mojo. I love Godfather I and II. I would rather defend Star Wars Episodes I-III than Godfather III. And this is how I feel about the Conversation (Just substitute "The Conversation" for "The Godfather"):

http://www.familyguyfiles.com/peter-hates-the-godfather-video/

World's Colliding

So the Stone retrospective left me thinking about anti-heroes. I told my wife I was considering writing about anti-heroes, to which she commented, "Isn't that a little high school." In spite of that, here we go!

Stone's Salvador gives us Richard Boyle, a real-life, heavy drinking, drug using burnt-out photographer with a flamingly liberal heart of gold played by James Woods. Boyle is covering the civil war in El Salvador and the impact of US involvement. We are taken to the heart of this well-intentioned ne'er do well in the confession scene, which Woods believed got him an Oscar nomination. Salvador is an interesting look at American foreign policy in a largely forgotten theater. It is also impressive as Stone's first serious directorial effort.

Stone looks at the ultimate American anti-hero in Nixon. This movie was good not great. I watched the director's cut, never saw the theatrical release, and it seemed to ramble and lose focus at times. My favorite parts were anything involving Nixon referring to himself in the third person, "Make peace with Russia and open up China, only Nixon could do that." The movie ends with an impassioned voice over said by Stone himself extolling Nixon's achievements. "Three and a half hours of Nixon, only Stone could do that."

Finally we come to some anti-heroes not from this world. Whereas many of Stone's characters are actual people form history, Mickey and Mallory Knox show us that Natural Born Killers are conceived somewhere deep inside a twisted American imagination. Much like Oliver Stone, Quentin Tarantino began his career writing screen plays for other directors. Many of these stories, From Dusk til Dawn, True Romance, Natural Born Killers, are loosely based in the same fictional world filled with criminals and lowlifes from various walks of life. As Stone brings his interpretation of Tarantino's world to life a tectonic clash of creativity unleashes a fierce and disturbing ultra-violent feast for the senses. One of my favorite touches in NBK is Harrelson's Mickey Knox watching Scarface, which Stone wrote and Brian De Palma directed.

Some final disclaimers: I think the definition of anti-hero is very loose and could mean several things. I haven't watched Natural Born Killers from start to finish since high school. I am an hour into re-watching it right now, not sure I will finish.

Vintage Coppola (pun intended)

I just finished watching Francis Ford Coppola’s The Conversation (1974), which I highly recommend. The film works on multiple levels: as an entertaining (albeit “deliberately paced”) thriller, as a moral fable for the Watergate age, and as a fascinating character study (thanks to a great and uncharacteristic lead performance by Gene Hackman).

But instead of writing a full review, I just want to pose a few questions that came to mind as the final credits were rolling. Is there any other director (or artist in any medium, for that matter) whose career peaked as quickly as Coppola’s? I ask this not to demean Coppola; I’ll even defend The Godfather: Part III (something few are willing to do). Yet his best work—the first two parts of The Godfather and The Conversation—was already behind him by the mid-70s. Did the experience of shooting Apocalypse Now ruin filmmaking for him? I can understand why he would never want to make an ambitious epic again, but why not go back to making more understated films like The Conversation? I invite your theories…

The Conversation: 9/10

PS The Conversation almost certainly influenced another great film about the ethics of surveillance: Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck’s The Lives of Others (2006). If you haven’t seen that one, do it now.

#Coppola #The Conversation #The Lives of Others

Here's a recent interview with Sidney Lumet, who died this past weekend. Near the end of the piece, he paraphrases Auden's famous line "poetry makes nothing happen" and claims, "I don't think art changes anything." It's easy to come up with counterarguments for these kinds of statements, but I still find it refreshing, especially coming from a great director whose films were often politically or socially conscious.

#Lumet #Auden

Charlie Sheen's Heyday

Charlie Sheen seems to be everywhere these days—everywhere except this blog. Until now. But rather than focusing on the latest tabloid fodder, I want to turn back the clock and dwell on a time when the actor still showed some promise. In 1986 and 1987, Sheen starred in back-to-back blockbusters, both directed by Oliver Stone: Platoon and Wall Street. The first film won several Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director, and the second brought Sheen’s co-star Michael Douglas the Oscar for Best Actor.

On the surface, the two films seem quite different, but they share the same essential structure. In each story, Charlie Sheen plays a young everyman (Chris Taylor in Platoon and Bud Fox in Wall Street) who must choose between alternative father figures. Two experienced army sergeants offer Taylor contrasting attitudes toward the Vietnam War in Platoon (Tom Berenger and Willem Dafoe both received Best Supporting Actor nominations for their performances). And Wall Street pits the infamous Gordon Gekko (Douglas) against Fox’s blue-collar, unionist father (played by Sheen’s real-life dad, Martin).

Both stories play out like medieval allegories—and I don’t necessarily mean that as a criticism. The advantage to this approach is that Stone is able to offer a satisfying layer of symbolism on top of the historically specific subject matter. The disadvantage, however, is that Stone’s “message” can become too explicit. Although they tend toward preachiness, the films still retain some complexity. Interestingly, in the allegorical struggle between good and evil, it is often that which ought to be condemned that ends up looking most attractive.

Sheen’s acting in these films is competent but not outstanding; he is typically overshadowed by the more charismatic characters around him. (The one truly bad performance belongs to Daryl Hannah in Wall Street.) In spite of the films’ flaws, though, Stone manages to keep the audience engaged with effective pacing (something he would accomplish again in the much longer, yet consistently riveting, JFK). The use of Samuel Barber’s Adagio for Strings in Platoon makes that film feel more timeless and elegiac (and perhaps more heavy-handed) than Wall Street, which features some humorously dated music by the drummer for the Police, Stewart Copeland. But in reality both films now belong to a bygone age: an age when one could actually take Charlie Sheen seriously.

Platoon: 8/10

Wall Streeet: 7/10

MPC

#Sheen #Stone #Platoon #Wall Street

Player King

The excellent English character actor Pete Postlethwaite died this week of cancer at 64.

I’ll always remember Postlethwaite best for his role as the lawyer Kobayashi in The Usual Suspects. The film is a great thriller, but it wouldn’t be nearly as effective without the scenes featuring Postlethwaite. In fact, the aura of mystery and the believability of the whole Keyzer Söze plotline are almost entirely due to Postlethwaite’s performance as Söze’s representative. Speaking in that marvelous accent, Kobayashi is able to make the other characters—and the audience—believe just about anything.

This past semester, I spent a lot of time watching film adaptations of Shakespeare plays, and Postlethwaite cropped up a couple of times. In Baz Luhrmann’s gaudy Romeo + Juliet (featuring Leo DiCaprio and Claire Danes in the title roles), Postlethwaite played Friar Laurence and distinguished himself as virtually the only actor in the cast who could convincingly deliver the Shakespearean dialogue. In Franco Zeffirelli’s Hamlet (starring Mel Gibson), he acted the part of the Player King in the play-within-the-play. Postlethwaite only has a few moments on screen, but once again, they are among the most memorable in the film.

Postlethwaite received one Academy Award nomination for playing Daniel Day-Lewis’s father in Jim Sheridan’s 1994 film, In the Name of the Father. I haven’t seen it yet, but I’ve added it to my queue. Postlethwaite also appeared in two recent films that I’ve moved to the top of my list: Inception and The Town.

Great character actors are just as rare as great stars—perhaps rarer. Pete Postlethwaite will be missed.

MPC

#Postlethwaite #The Usual Suspects #Shakespeare

Comment on Black Swan

I thought it was a good movie, maybe great. The cinematography and sets were great. The camera work was decent. I thought his scare tactics got a little hackneyed. I liken this movie to There Will Be Blood (which I liked more): It was very well made, but I didn't like the story.

Black Swan

Aronofsky has inspired a mixture of emotions over the years. Pi was creepy but a solid film so early in his career and The Wrestler was one of last year's best movies. However, the psycho-babble of The Fountain was awful. With Black Swan, Aronofsky was able to pull off what he could not before: weave together a gritty, realistic story with pure insanity.

The film's narrative is centered on the competitive world of a premiere ballet company and the production of Swan Lake. Many viewers will have no prior knowledge or experience with this industry, but it feels authentic. Natalie Portman gives the best performance of her career portraying a neurotic and emotionally immature dancer. Her relationship with her mother is especially creepy. The ballet scenes are shot using handheld cameras that gives a more intimate feel to the productions. The emotion on Portman's face during these scenes is especially moving. Her dancing is very convincing, at least to an amaturer's eyes.

Of course, the story does not stop at the ballet company. Summarizing the story would ruin it but the psychodrama that plays out is freaky and emotionally powerful. The final scene is simply gut wrenching. The only flaw is that some of the "freakiness" is a bit heavy handed, particularly the white vs. black theme. It could have been more subtle at times.

This may be Aranofsy's best. 9/10 stars.

Death Proof not Ego Proof

I like Quentin Tarantino movies. That doesn’t mean that all his movies are GOOD. Death Proof is not a good movie. But it has good parts: classic example of not enough material to cover two hours. What really steamed me was Tarantino referencing himself throughout the movie. Well it’s not really self-reference, it’s just being lazy.

The premise of the movie, a psycho stuntman kills people with his death proof car, should make for some good pulp fiction (wink emoticon). But it takes forever to get to the point. The first half of the movie opens with a long dull conversation between friends driving in a car. Just like Travolta and Samuel L educating my 14-year-old self long ago. But this conversation has no great lines like, “Le Big Mac” or “Would you give a man a foot massage?” After a while Kurt Russell, doing an admirable job, briefly revs up the movie with the help of the titular car.

Then comes the second half of the movie, and another long boring conversation. This time friends talk around breakfast at a diner. The camera angles and camera movement are almost identical to Reservoir Dogs. Just remove Mr. Blonde and Mr. White and substitute flat dialogue delivered by mediocre actors. We finally get to some interesting stuff when Zoe Bell, a New Zealand stuntwoman playing herself, starts doing some crazy tricks on the hood of a 1974 Dodge Challenger doing 85mph. Zoe does a phenomenal job, making the most of the camera actually seeing her face. In the middle of this joy ride, Crazy-Kurt Russell shows up to torment the girlfriends, but this time they fight back. The action picks up and the final car chase finally gives us ten consecutive minutes of entertainment.

In spite of Zoe Bell’s death-defying exuberance, the movie is boring and we are left watching Tarantino rehashing his best work.

I just finished watching Kill Bill 1 and 2. Don’t let anyone tell you they are the same movie. Kill Bill 2 is way better than 1. Reasons: Kill Bill 1 is full of that annoying over-stylized dialogue that Tarantino keeps trying, and failing, to recreate. Another reason is Kill Bill 2 actually has a story and some interesting characters.

Re-watching Inglorious Bastards reminded me why I liked it the first time. Good writing, great camera work and one heck of a satisfying ending.

I’ve seen Pulp Fiction a lot so no need to revisit that; basically I love that movie.

Reservoir Dogs I’ve seen more than enough times. I find the violence in that movie to be very disturbing and no it’s not because of the famous ear scene, which is delightfully spoofed by Itchy and Scratchy. To explain why I find the violence from Reservoir Dogs so disturbing I would have to watch it again, and I don’t want to do that.

I’ve almost finished re-watching Jackie Brown on Netflix watch now. Samuel L must have been given carte blanche to use as many f-words as he wanted. Pretty entertaining.

Winter’s Bone: Quite Refreshing

Three things that “gritty”, “real” “films” usually lack are: a concise story, an appropriate length and enough respect for the audience to not brutalize them with two and a half hours of grinding nonsense. Winter’s Bone has all three of these things and is a very enjoyable, perhaps uplifting movie.

Winter’s Bone is the story of Ree Dolly, a seventeen-year-old girl that must find her meth-cooking, fugitive father in order to save the family homestead. After being arrested, Ree’s father Jessup put the family house and property up as collateral for a bail bond. He has now disappeared and Ree must find him in order to save the home in which she is raising her younger siblings and caring for her catatonic mother.

Ree works to track down Jessup by questioning his associates in the crystal meth business. All these associates happen to be blood relations of one kind or another, including Jessup’s brother Teardrop. As Ree searches her small town deep in the Missouri Ozarks, the filmmakers create an atmosphere thick with fear and intimidation. The entire clan wants the problem of Jessup’s disappearance to go away, and is willing to use violence to keep things quiet.

The strength of the story is the eventual alliance between Teardrop and Ree; born out of Teardrop’s compassion for his closest living kin. The tension of the story comes from Ree’s courage and determination constantly crashing against the threats of her relations.

Winter’s Bone clocks in at a neat hour and forty minutes, keeping a nice brisk pace. It never becomes sentimental, but does provide some heartwarming scenes.

SPOILER ALERT: Through the entire movie Ree meets each challenge with a strength drawn from her need to protect her brother and sister from eviction. The only time we see her truly overwhelmed and horrified is the climax of the movie: procuring evidence of her father’s location. As she gets the first piece of evidence her cries are drowned out by a roaring chainsaw, but we see her face twisted in agony. When she gets the second piece her face shows steely determination.

Other news:

Gladiator II: The Crowe/R.Scott Robin Hood was actually pretty fun. I went into it with low expectations, but was pleasantly surprised. Danny Huston does a nice job as Richard the Lionheart, and my main man Max Von Sydow turns in a strong performance as well.

A Man for All Seasons was great. Paul Scofield, Robert Shaw and about five minutes of Orson Welles. Definitely worth a second viewing.

Department of Defense: The Phantom Menace

"Believe me Henry, we all think this is temporary"

So quips Don Draper in the first episode of Mad Men season 4. Many things in the show are temporary. The main character's firm has changed hands several times, and he is newly divorced. Something else haunts Don's footsteps threatening to make his entire life temporary.

We join Mad Men season 4 at episode 10, in what I would call the upswing of the season. Don has curtailed his drinking and destructive behavior, which was a streak so bad it cut Mad Men viewership in our house by half. I call it McNulty syndrome (if anyone reading this hasn't seen The Wire, they need to force their lives to a grinding halt and watch the entire series, well seasons 1-4 anyway).

So the upswing continues with Don doing something nice for his daughter, taking her to the Beatles at Shea Stadium.* In typical Mad Men fashion this kind gesture cannot occur without providing some tension. Don does not have the tickets yet and has to pressure a subordinate to supply them.* But this tension is quickly brushed aside by the specter of Don's past threatening everything he has accomplished.

The fruition of the North America Aviation account has brought about the need for background checks at Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce. The intrusion of The Department of Defense into Don's life is introduced through an interview with his ex-wife Betty. In one of the most awkwardly hilarious scenes in the series, the G-men ask Betty about Don's integrity, loyalty and whether or not he is who he says he is. Betty defends her philandering, identity-stealing ex-husband with great composure. Upon hearing of the interview Don loses his footing, gradually falling into an abyss of panic. He blames his secretary for his negligence and turns to alcohol to calm himself. He also leans on his unlikely ally Pete Campbell to solve the problem. The final action Don takes is preparing an exit strategy. He wants a trust setup immediately in order to provide for his children, intimating a willingness to start over yet again.

The heroism of Don's life lies in the truly American nature of his story. A completely self-made man, he has risen from the most humble beginnings to a place of fame and prestige. Along the way he has stolen another man's identity and cheated the US Army out of several years of service. The punishment for this action is a phantom constantly haunting his footsteps. Another component of Don's American life is his powerful creativity. Much like Bill Gates and Steven Spielberg, Don has achieved success by creating things which powerfully touch a mass audience. We see this life of invention and creation threatened by an established power. Don is constantly navigating a world of establishment and privilege, from his co-workers to his ex-wife. Now the US government is flexing its ever-growing power as it peers into the story of one of its citizens. After a rags to riches story, Don Draper faces the prospect of Willy Loman's fate, destitution.

Don is recuperating from the US government looking into his past when his girlfriend Fay, at last a promising romance for Don, arrives at the office. She immediately sees he is not well and takes him home. When they arrive at Don's apartment true panic takes hold of him. Two men in suits are searching Don's floor for an address. If it were not for Fay's presence these two men could be an hallucination representing Don's deep-seeded fear of being outed as Dick Whitman. It turns out these men are looking for someone else, but the damage has been done. Upon entering his apartment, Don is in the midst of an overwhelming panic attack. Don musters the courage to tell Fay about his past life, and she draws him back from his void of panic.

To escape the inevitable, Don pressures Pete Campbell to drop the account. So Don gains a temporary reprieve from consequences so he can continue his temporary life. Given the shows track record, it's only a matter of time until Don truly has to deal with his stolen identity.

At the end of the episode Don gets the Beatles' tickets and we know he will share a special evening with his daughter. But the episode ends with an ominous rendition of McCartney-Lennon tune: "Do you want to know a secret?"*

*I love the historical and pop culture reference Mad Men incorporates into it's episodes. From the Beatles and Liston vs. Clay II to the Cuban Missile Crisis and JFK's assassination

*Don does a great job of being a jerk to his subordinates. His pressure on Harry Crane for the Beatles tickets is a great example of how he keeps everyone in line.

*I knew the song during the credits without looking it up: BOOYAH!

Origin Myths

Let’s get this party started. The appletinis are on Justin Timberlake.

There’s a lot to like in David Fincher’s The Social Network: the acting is almost uniformly superb, Aaron Sorkin’s script is smart (and often very funny), and the cinematography is excellent, too. But what impressed me most was the film’s exploration of how great ideas are born. (Yes, I’m calling Facebook a great idea, though I’m still not becoming a member.) Much of the story’s dramatic tension results from its quest to determine exactly how much credit Zuckerberg deserves for his creation, and the filmmakers never settle on a definitive answer. On the one hand, we’re presented with the traditional portrait of the solitary artistic or scientific genius: antisocial, consumed, inspired. But the inspired genius doesn’t operate in a vacuum; the reality is messier than that. We also see precisely how those surrounding Zuckerberg contributed (in various direct and indirect ways) to the development and ultimate success of his idea.

What’s even more interesting, though, is the proposition that the film’s first and last scenes seem to imply: that Facebook’s true origin—and probably the origin of many, many other great ideas throughout history—was a gifted but insecure guy's desire to impress a girl (which ends up manifesting itself in an extraordinarily roundabout way). This may sound reductive, but don’t you think there’s some truth in it? After all, weren’t most of Yeats’s best poems just a way of channeling his unrequited love for Maud Gonne? I think we need a psychiatrist’s opinion…

One more aspect of the film deserves special mention: the music. Just as the Dust Brothers lent a palpable energy and drive to Fincher’s Fight Club, Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross’s soundtrack does a nice job of establishing the proper tone. (The tone is more subdued—and the music less intrusive—than you might expect; you’re not going to hear anything as manic as NIN’s “The Perfect Drug.”) I actually would’ve liked to hear a bit more of Reznor and Ross, but the real musical highlight belongs to a different set of artists (I won’t spoil it here). Fincher pulls out the big guns for the film’s last scene, and the transition the song provides from final shot to closing credits is highly effective.

Go see it, and tell me what you think.

MPC

One last note: our previews included the full trailer of the Coens' True Grit. Very promising. Very promising indeed.

#The Social Network #Fincher #Soundtracks #Coen brothers #Yeats

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