Short Reviews (Disco Dancer, Woody Allen: A Documentary, Pale Flower, Gimmer Shelter, Escape Plan, Jingle All the Way, Stop Making Sense, Ijaazat, Sorority House Massacre II, Broadcast News, The Brood)
Disco Dancer (1982)
Dir. Babbar Subhash
I howled all the way through this, although my parents didn’t share my sense of humour. The standard rags-to-riches narrative is executed in the worst possible way – with one especially amusing auction scene – but the ineptitude doesn’t stop there. This probably has some of the worst fight scenes I’ve ever seen. The hero’s getting his ass kicked, but then starts kicking ass after he begins to snap his fingers. Also, there are just stacks of loose bricks lying around, waiting for some poor lackey to be hurled into them. This happens a few times until the hero goes for the big finish and hurls a bad guy into a food cart. There’s an even lamer (read: more awesome) fight at the end in which the same footage of the hero flipping through the air is used multiple times in quick succession, and footage seemingly shot at entirely different times (and possibly on different sets or with different lighting setups) is spliced together terribly unconvincingly. You could tell they were going for a kitschy sort of cool, but the meager budget and total lack of technical finesse and craftsmanship led to some charming unintentional camp. But hey, there’s disco and dancing, and the last musical number is fairly rousing. Enjoyable crap.
Woody Allen: A Documentary (2012)
Dir. Robert B. Weide
Very informative and full of good insights on its subject, but given the length of the affair (over three hours) and the fact that the best insights and anecdotes tend to consistently come from the same few subjects, you get the feeling it could have been a lot tighter. A disproportionate amount of time is given to his actors on his more recent films, and their stories sort of blend together and are never all that interesting. The best stuff largely comes from people who have known or worked with him for a long time or people who have studied his work, and Allen himself, who frankly doesn’t seem too enamoured with his own work but nevertheless provides a lot of insight into his ideas and working methods. To be honest, I mostly watch this sort of thing for the film clips and the leisurely pacing, and this delivers on that front. That I learned anything about the subject is merely icing on the cake.
Pale Flower (1964)
Dir. Masahiro Shinoda
The purity and focus of the film’s style is something I found quite appealing. The visuals seem to hone in perfectly on individual figures or gestures, and this is matched by the single-mindedness of the soundtrack, which seems to filter out all but an individual sound or piece of music. This works especially well in the numerous gambling scenes, which are hone out the mechanical fury of the shuffling and transacting and pare the action down to its dramatic basics. I didn’t understand the rules of the game they play at all, but that seems rather appropriate given that the scenes are about the relationship between the principals and the thrill rather than the outcome of the game. I didn’t quite love the film, but I can definitely see it growing on me.
Gimme Shelter (1970)
Dir. David Maysles, Albert Maysles & Charlotte Zwerin
The film works as well as it does because of its ambiguous view of its subjects. It doesn’t demonize the Rolling Stones but it doesn’t let them off the hook either. We are told early on of the violence that occurred at the Altamont concert, so the joy of the opening sequence (with Mick Jagger and Charlie Watts and a donkey) quickly gives way to a dread that pervades the rest of the film. As a Stones fan, I found much to enjoy in the performance footage, and I like that the filmmakers let the appeal of the band come through on its own rather than try to enhance it with any stylistic flourishes (although the blood red lighting of the Madison Square Garden concert gives Jagger a pleasingly devilish flair). The behind the scenes footage shows them as pretty well behaved, in stark contrast to their party animal image and their more enthusiastic fans. But that dread I spoke about builds and builds as we see them slowly losing control of their enterprise from the planning stages to the concert itself, and there’s an upsetting inevitability about the violence when it does happen. And the whole time, we are watching the film with Jagger, who looks at the footage and tries to come to terms with his (and by extension, our) complicity in the events that transpired. Very good stuff.
Escape Plan (2013)
Dir. Mikael Håfström
Surprisingly enjoyable. Due to the small scale of the story, a lot of the focus is on the performances, which is a very smart move. This has been touted as the first proper team-up between Stallone and Schwarzenegger, and it certainly doesn’t disappoint. The movie actually requires them to act (instead of just gawking at them like glorified action figures), and both actors bring a weathered charisma and have an easy chemistry between them. It understands their appeal better than the Expendables movies and actually manages to work with their age instead of trying to ignore it. They even manage to make routine expository scenes and unexceptional one-liners compelling with their delivery, and there’s a rant in German by Schwarzenegger that’s some of the finest acting he’s ever done and it makes one wonder if he could have been a serious actor in an alternate universe. Other pleasant surprises come in the form of a character who is implied to be a Muslim terrorist played as a hero with no apologies, and Jim Caviezel’s villain, who plays his role as if he’s waltzed in from a classier movie and responds to plot developments with a mixture of annoyance and detachment. And even if the action is unremarkable in most respects, there’s something innately satisfying about seeing an action icon pick up a machine gun and fire it like nobody’s business. This probably could have been better executed in some respects, but it understands its strong points and wisely lets them shine.
Jingle All the Way (1996)
Dir. Brian Levant
A searing indictment of materialist excess and a surreal examination of the capitalist perversion of religious traditions in a post-‘80s America, as well as—I’m just kidding, this movie blows.
Stop Making Sense (1984)
Dir. Jonathan Demme
A big ball of energy that starts building from the get go and never lets up. Demme’s visuals, defined by longer takes, smartly chosen angles and shots that weave through the musicians and give them an almost tactile closeness, are perfectly in sync with the performances. They’re presented in a self-contained format which shows the music off in the best possible way and makes the whole thing more immersive. The Talking Heads themselves rip through rousing renditions of pretty much every song in the set, and any accusations of pretentiousness that can be aimed at the elaborateness of their act are waived by the energy level and the seemingly spontaneous gestures throughout. Their hearts are totally in it. Highlights? There are a lot, but a few that stood out to me were the minimalist take on “Psycho Killer”, Byrne’s marionette-like movements during “Life During Wartime” (and most of the other songs too, actually), and the reveal of the big suit and the extension of the microphone to the camera (and by extension, the viewer) during “Girlfriend is Better”. I wouldn’t say that I’m a huge Talking Heads fan (more from a lack of exploration than any real dislike), but I found the music and the performances here to have a real urgency and joy. Fantastic stuff.
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Ijaazat (1987)
Dir. Gulzar
Sober, unsentimental relationship drama with very good performances from Naseeruddin Shah and Rekha. Yet despite some very good insights and individual moments, I don’t think the whole thing works as well as it should. The third wheel/other woman character, as played by Anuradha Patel, is much too broad and feels like she belongs in a different movie. She might have worked better in a melodrama, but the way her character is played feels very much at odds with the film’s clear-eyed vision.
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Sorority House Massacre II (1990)
Dir. Jim Wynorski
The film starts out on an ominous note when it’s revealed that the heroines took bought the house where the murders from the first movie took place. Not because it’s the murder house, but because it’s a total dump and they took out three separate loans to buy it. Consolidate your debts, ladies! It’s gonna make it very hard for me to care when these cardboard cutouts start getting hacked to bits. And no, I haven’t seen the first film, so it was very nice of them to include a flashback sequence with all the kills, so that I would be caught up with the plot. Because when I sit down to watch Sorority House Massacre II, plot is truly the greatest of my concerns. The flashback is narrated by their neighbor, a creepy guy who eats raw meat, keeps keys in his underpants and is obsessed with the killer from the first movie (credit where credit is due: there’s a genuinely clever gag when the guy goes through news articles of the murders). Anyway, the cardboard cutouts – the nubile, well-endowed cardboard cutouts – find ample time to shower (cardboard holds up surprisingly well under water) and get into their underwear before the fun begins. A porno has less contrived nudity than this. Also better acting, and with a line like “No one puts a finger in my diviner”, better dialogue too. There’s also a subplot with two cops that doesn’t really go anywhere and serves no purpose other than as an excuse for more skin and to prove that there’s more than one set in the movie. Anyway, the movie gets to the slashing, and there are a few things approximating surprises, as well as a coda that sneaks in a busty nurse at the last minute. I have a weird respect for something that embraces its trashiness so fully (maybe “respect” isn’t the right word), and in its near-total ineptitude, the film does manage to be entertaining. Recommended if you’re looking for fun schlock.
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Broadcast News (1987)
Dir. James L. Brooks
Quite good. A witty romantic comedy distinguished by some sharp dialogue, and well realized characters and performances. Holly Hunter and Albert Brooks are pretty much naturals for their roles, and while I have a little trouble buying William Hurt as a bimbo, I thought he pulled off the role quite well and the script doesn’t short change him either (he’s still shown to be hard working and likable). The conflict between flash and substance in news is touched upon, but it’s used more as a backdrop for the relationship dynamics than as the focus of the film’s themes. I liked the ending – it felt honest to the characters and I appreciated that it didn’t go for the sort of easy romcom ending that could have been tempting.
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The Brood (1979)
Dir. David Cronenberg
Good, but far from my favourite Cronenberg that I’ve seen. Thematically there’s much to dig into. Aside from the concerns with the body and the distrust of improvement/ascension that seem to run through the director’s work, there’s also the breakdown of the family dynamic that’s featured front and centre. Without giving away too much, the film finds much horror in the subversion of traditional family roles and images and in the generational/hereditary concerns that pop up in Cronenberg’s work in a different form (in at least A History of Violence and Eastern Promises). That being said, I don’t think this all works as well as it could. In terms of its ideas, it’s very much a “modern” horror film, yet the direction is too traditional, distilling its scares into creature-feature-like effect when a more ambiguous, paranoid approach would have been more appropriate. The actors play their parts with the utmost seriousness and there are some effective scares and potent images, but I felt that the material could have been better handled.
