Author Archive

  • 06 Nov

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    42nd Street Forever: Volume 1

    1

    42nd Street Forever 1 DVD CaseHello everyone. It’s been a while.

    Since I last posted on Row Three, I’ve spent a lot of time exploring the wild, crazy world of what’s commonly known as “Grindhouse”, or exploitation, cinema (both terms seem a bit overused nowadays, don’t they?). To this end, I purchased a series of DVDs, released by Synapse Films, titled 42nd Street Forever, which are essentially a collection of trailers from the Grindhouse era (starting in the late 60′s on through to the mid 80′s). It’s a terrific series of DVDs, and I really have a lot of fun watching them. So, as a way of kinda slipping back into things here on Row Three, I thought I’d devote some time to covering each volume of the 42nd Street Forever collection.

    Volume 1 contains over 2 hours of trailers, covering a wide range of genres and sub-genres. Needless to say, many of these trailers stretch the boundaries of good taste to their absolute limit (there’s plenty of nudity, graphic violence, and a whole lot of what we’d today term “political incorrectness” packed into these trailers). But let’s be honest: that’s what makes them so much fun!

    Now, instead of me just droning on about the various trailers in each series, I thought I’d take full advantage of all the internet has to offer by presenting a few of them, just to give you an idea of what you’d be in for if you chose to check Volume 1 out.

    That said, I guess I better start off with the following:

    Warning: the trailers presented in this post are of an adult nature, and contain violence, nudity, and sexual situations. By clicking READ MORE below, you are confirming that you are of a proper age to view this material, and are not easily offended by blah blah blah blah blah).

    Now that that’s out of the way, let’s get started:

    » Read the rest of the entry..

  • 15 Aug

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    Home Video Spotlight: Chungking Express (1994) – Blu-Ray

    3

    Like many people who count themselves a fan of movies, I have an extensive DVD collection, one that has been building for damn near eight years now. However, until recently, I admit that I’ve spent very little time exploring everything my collection had to offer me. Sure, I would watch the films; fact is, I’ve seen some of them as many as 15-20 times. But with the majority of my collection, this was as far as my curiosity would take me, leaving countless hours of commentary tracks and special features out in the cold. Over the past few months, I’ve been making a concerted effort to change this trend, taking the time to investigate everything that my various home video releases had to offer me. It has been, to say the least, an interesting experiment, and one that I am anxious to share with you over the coming months. To start this series off, I chose to sit down with a true classic, not to mention a release that itself has completely justified my decision to invest in a Blu-Ray player.

    Wong Kar-Wai’s Chungking Express is a movie I fell in love with on the very first viewing, a film with a pulsating cinematic style that boasts, at its heart, four very vibrant characters. The truth is there’s a lot to admire about Chungking Express, yet what I personally found most fascinating was how the film took two similar stories (the love lives, or lack thereof, of two Hong Kong policemen) and told each in a completely unique manner, going so far as to delve into different genres from one story to the next. The first part of the film, which stars Brigitte Lin and Takashi Kaneshiro, boasts some exciting action sequences, and is very fast-paced. The second (longer) segment stars Tony Leung and Faye Wong, and is much more light-hearted, more comedic in tone. Yet what’s truly incredible is how both parts of Chungking Express make for such an entertaining whole, each styled in a way that there’s no mistaking these two distinctive segments belong to the same film. It is a wonderful marriage of genres, creating a work that is among the most unique I’ve ever seen.

    I was thrilled when I learned that Criterion was going to release a version of this film, and even more so when the Blu-Ray was announced. If ever a movie deserved that “Criterion Treatment”, it’s this one, and while there aren’t nearly as many supplemental features included with Chungking Express as there have been with past Criterion releases, I can state without hesitation that what this version lacks in quantity, it more than makes up for in quality.

    To start with, the High-Definition transfer, which was supervised by Wong Kar-Wai himself, looks tremendous. There were times when I was taken aback at how crisp the film looked. Next, there’s an audio commentary recorded by Asian cinema critic Tony Rayns. Admittedly, there have been times when the audio commentaries on past Criterion releases left me a bit cold, mostly because I felt the commentaries themselves were a bit cold, perhaps a bit too scholarly for their own good, and, though informative, seemed more like film class lectures than true analyses. Fortunately, Mr. Rayns avoids such pitfalls and comes across very naturally, relying both on his knowledge of Asian cinema and his familiarity with Wong Kar-Wai’s career to create a very informative, not to mention revealing, commentary track. Also included on this release is an episode from the BBC series Moving Pictures, which contains interviews with both Wong Kar-Wai and cinematographer Christopher Doyle (a doc that also features the director taking us on a tour of the film’s various locations). Finally, there’s the U.S. theatrical trailer, thrown in for good measure.

    Another feature of Criterions past has been the inclusion of an essay booklet, and Chungking Express is no exception. Here, we’re treated to an essay by critic Amy Taubin, who (like others before her) believes Wong Kar-Wai owes a lot to the works of Jean-Luc Godard, drawing comparisons between Chungking Express and Godard’s 1966 film, Masculin Feminin. Again, this assertion is nothing new, yet Taubin still succeeds in composing a very interesting essay.

    I’m of the opinion that Wong Kar-Wai’s Chungking Express is one of the finest films ever created, and kudos to the folks at Criterion for giving us fans that version of the film we’ve been waiting a long time to see.

  • 02 Apr

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    Timecrimes and Special now available on DVD

    16

    While the spotlight may have been stolen by Tuesday’s DVD premiere of Oscar darling Slumdog Millionaire, two other films also debuted on home video that day, both of which are worth noting, and certainly worth checking out.

    Timecrimes is an intense, fascinating thriller from director Nacho Vigalando that tells the story of a man named Hector who takes an unexpected leap backwards in time. Karra Elejalde is effective as Hector, gathering up our sympathies for his plight even when his character has crossed the line of acceptable behavior, but what I found most appealing about Timecrimes was its pacing. The film is in no hurry to get from point A to point B; it reveals itself slowly, layer by layer, taking the viewer down one path, then another, then another, and each more intriguing than the last. Aside from effectively building tension, this pacing also helps us to keep up with what’s going on, which in turn magnifies the numerous surprises lurking around each and every corner. Timecrimes is shocking, exciting, and entirely satisfying.

    In Special (a film both Andrew and Kurt have also offered their opinions on), Michael Rapaport stars as Les, a man who signs on as a test subject for a new medication and, as a result, starts to believe he’s developed super powers. At times, Special is a very funny film, especially early on when Les is demonstrating his ‘powers’ to those around him. But Special is more than just a comedy; it’s the portrait of a man whose lifetime of disappointment has suddenly been filled with hope and purpose, a storyline that supplies the film with a very real dramatic layer. Rapaport, whom I had only seen in supporting roles prior to Special, is superb, and the combined direction of Hal Haberman and Jeremy Passmore is near flawless. Made on a budget of just around a million dollars, Special may have the look and feel of a small film, but it delivers in a big, big way.

    Both Timecrimes and Special are available for purchase at Amazon, and were released by Magnolia Home Entertainment.

  • 16 Mar

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    A Martin Scorsese Marathon

    5

    “Basically, you make another movie, and another, and hopefully you feel good about every picture you make. And you say, ‘My name is on that. I did that. It’s OK’. But don’t get me wrong, I still get excited by it all. That, I hope, will never disappear.” – Martin Scorsese

    For the better part of the last three decades, I have been a fan of Martin Scorsese. My admiration first took bloom in the summer of 1985, and happened to coincide with what I consider to be the discovery of my young adult life; set off the main drag of the town I grew up in, I found a small video store. Now, this in itself was no great revelation; in the years before Blockbuster came barreling into my area, forcing all the smaller video chains out of business, there were at least half a dozen such stores within a 3-mile radius. But the moment I walked into this particular video palace, I knew it was special. Where most were lining their shelves with numerous copies of the ‘hot new releases’, this one had titles like Midnight Cowboy, 2001: A Space Odyssey, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Straw Dogs, A Clockwork Orange, films that the others simply didn’t offer. For me, this store was a treasure trove, and I returned there often, sometimes 3-4 times a week, uncovering classic after classic, films that, to this day, I consider some of the finest ever made.

    And it was here that I first found Mean Streets.

    Tough and unflinching, Mean Streets was like a punch to the head for a 15-year-old from the suburbs; a marriage of images and rock music, violence and pain the likes of which I had never seen before, offering a glimpse into a lifestyle that I found all too real, and a little bit frightening. I must have rented it at least six times that summer, and as a result, Mean Streets fast became my favorite movie. More than this, it was my jumping-off point into the career of Martin Scorsese. After Mean Streets, I moved on to Taxi Driver and Raging Bull, two more shots to the head. Through these three films, I realized just how deep, just how down-and-dirty, and just how moving the cinema could be. They marked a turning point in my development as a film fan. Movies were no longer limited to the land of make believe; they would also be a window overlooking the real world.

    Now, almost 24 years after I first walked into that video store, I’ve decided to take my admiration to the next, perhaps the ultimate, level. Over the course of the last several weeks, I sat down with everything that home video has to offer of Martin Scorsese’s work behind the camera, 26 films in all, and what I uncovered on this love-fest of mine proved to be just as enlightening as that first viewing of Mean Streets all those years ago.

    As I sat watching one Scorsese movie after the other, I found myself asking, “What exactly is it that constitutes a Martin Scorsese film”? It was a question I had to pose, because I quickly realized that most of my initial beliefs, the pre-conceptions I had built up about the man and his career, only told part of the story.

    For one, there was my presumption that the recurring trait in every Scorsese film was a down-to-earth quality, where the genuine, the realistic, would be favored above all else. Well, this is certainly true in some of Scorsese’s finest films, especially those where actual events served as a foundation (Raging Bull, Goodfellas, Casino, The Aviator). However, it was wrong of me to discount the role that fantasy played in Scorsese’s work. The opening scene of Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore looks as if it was lifted right out of Gone With the Wind, and the musical numbers of New York, New York were obvious nods to the Hollywood big-budget spectaculars of the 40’s and 50’s. There is the dreamy romance of The Age of Innocence, and the hilarious bad luck of Paul Hackett in After Hours; in short, films that have little or no basis in reality whatsoever, proving that the fantastic plays just as important a role in the great director’s work as reality does.
    » Read the rest of the entry..

  • 06 Dec

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    Classic Movie Quiz III

    9

    Presenting round three of the classic movie quiz. See how many of these ten you can get. As with the previous quizzes, I’ve tried to make a few of them tough to figure out.

    Best of luck.

    1). “We have now what we have always needed, real partnership with the government.”

    2). “I’m a strong tree with branches for many birds.”

    3). “Ernest Hemingway once wrote, ‘The world is a fine place and worth fighting for’ I agree with the second part.”

    4). “Politicians, ugly buildings, and whores all get respectable if they last long enough.”

    5). “There was a demon that lived in the air.”

    6). “Almighty and most merciful Father, we humbly beseech Thee of Thy great goodness to restrain this immoderate weather with which we have had to contend.”

    7). “Do you have the slightest idea what a moral and ethical principle is?”

    8). “Twelve days of Christmas! One day of Christmas is loathsome enough!”

    9). “Everything’s getting worse. Worse people, worse machines, worse wars… and worse weather. I’m glad I will soon be dead.”

    10). “We want to hurt no-one. We’re here for the bank’s money, not your money.”

  • 25 Nov

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    Classic Movie Quote Quiz, Round 2

    18

    It’s time for round two of the classic movie quote quiz. How many of these ten you can get? As with last time, I have a few in here that I think are pretty difficult. Let’s see if you can prove me wrong.

    Good luck.

    1). “You might as well question why we breathe. If we stop breathing, we’ll die. If we stop fighting our enemies, the world will die.”

    2). “I think I must have one of those faces you can’t help believing.”

    3). “A man who tells lies, like me, merely hides the truth. But a man who tells half-lies has forgotten where he put it.”

    4). “We’ve met before, but something tells me you’re going to remember me this time.”

    5). “Our source was the New York Times.”

    6). “Its structural perfection is matched only by its hostility.”

    7). “He was my idol. I can’t think of a time when I didn’t know his name.”

    8). “You boys ain’t a mild case of the measles – you’re the plague.”

    9). “Hey, I don’t need this… I don’t need this working-class-hero crap.”

    10). “All the confusion of my life… has been a reflection of myself! Myself as I am, not as I’d like to be.”

  • 22 Nov

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    Spotlight on: Ray Winstone

    3

    Having recently seen The Proposition for the first time, I was impressed enough with Ray Winstone’s performance to delve a little deeper into his work. As it turns out, he’s had a very interesting, not to mention impressive, career thus far. I’m not sure exactly how regular a posting this Spotlight On series will become, but I can say that, if it does blossom into a regular offering, it will owe its inspiration to Ray Winstone.

    Having achieved a respectable level of fame in the new millennium, the truth of the matter is that Ray Winstone has been around for a while. His breakthrough performance came in Alan Clarke’s Scum, an overlooked gem that started life as a 1977 BBC television drama before being given a theatrical release in 1979. Winstone played Carlin, a young hoodlum locked away in a juvenile detention center, and was excellent in what would prove to be a very demanding role. He was also one of the best things about 1981’s Ladies and Gentlemen, The Fabulous Stains, playing the lead singer of a British punk rock group touring America.

    Having done mostly television throughout the 80’s and early 90’s, Winstone returned to feature films in 1997 with Nil by Mouth, the directorial debut of friend and fellow actor, Gary Oldman. Two years later, he was again cast in a film by an actor-turned-director, this time Tim Roth. The title of that movie was The War Zone, and Winstone turned in a stellar performance as a father who’s sexually abusing his teenage daughter.

    Ray Winstone has kept himself busy over the last 11 years, appearing in 29 feature films (while also managing to mix in a few television stints along the way). He’s appeared in everything from Big-budget Hollywood productions (he was solid as Jack Nicholson’s second-in-command in Scorsese’s The Departed) to lesser-known independent features (Face was a sturdy, if somewhat forgettable crime drama). His best performance to date, however, can be found in Jonathan Glazer’s Sexy Beast, where Winstone plays Gal Dove, a retired thief whose utopian life in the south of Spain is thrown into chaos by the arrival of a venomous old associate.

    As busy as Ray Winstone’s been over the last decade or so, it doesn’t appear to be tiring him out; he has seven films slated for release in 2009 and 2010.

    To catch a glimpse of Ray Winstone at his absolute best, watch the video clips hidden under the “more” link below. If you like the clips, then I strongly recommend checking out the films (links to the DVDs on Amazon can be followed by clicking on the title above each clip)

    » Read the rest of the entry..

  • 21 Nov

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    Classic Movie Quote Quiz

    29

    Taking a page out of Andrew’s book (OK…I flat out stole his idea), I present yet another movie quote quiz. This time, however, there are ten quotes, and each is from a classic film (or, at the very least, films that many agree have achieved that status). Try to name as many of the films as you can.

    Some are fairly simple, but I’ve thrown a few in that might stump you as well.

    Good luck.

    1). “You could find a lover boy on every damn corner in town. It don’t make a damn to them whether you’re waitin’ on tables or pickin’ cotton, but it does make a damn to me”.

    2). “Don’t overcook it. You overcook it, it’s no good. It defeats its own purpose.”

    3). “I shall remember this moment: the silence, the twilight, the bowl of strawberries, the bowl of milk. Your faces in the evening light.”

    4). “Some day this country’s gonna be a fine, good place to be. Maybe it needs our bones in the ground before that time can come.”

    5). “Unpleasant? Strange. I’ve been told I have a very winning personality. The very best shoe clerk the store ever had.”

    6). “She was fifteen years old, going on thirty-five, Doc, and she told me she was eighteen”

    7). “Well, go on, do me in you bastard cowards! I don’t want to live anyway, not in a stinking world like this!”

    8). “How can you trust a man who wears both a belt and suspenders? The man can’t even trust his own pants.”

    9). “On board every flight, there’s one stewardess you long to seduce.”

    10). You have a right to kill me. You have a right to do that… but you have no right to judge me.”

  • 15 Nov

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    On Filmmaking: Werner Herzog

    8

    Just yesterday, I began reading Herzog on Herzog (published in 2002 by Faber and Faber, inc)., a series of interviews in which Paul Cronin (who also edited the book) discusses a variety of topics with the renowned director, covering all of his films up to and including 2001’s Invincible. I came across the following this morning, and thought the rest of the Row Three community might find it interesting. In it, Herzog offers his views on filmmaking, and what he feels it takes to become a director.

    Paul Cronin: What are your views on film schools? I gather you’d prefer people just went out and made films than spending years at school.

    Werner Herzog: I personally do not believe in the kind of film schools you find all over the world today. I never worked as another filmmaker’s assistant and I never had any formal training. My early films come from my very deepest commitment to what I was doing, what I felt I had no choice but to do, and as such they were totally unconnected to what was going on at the film schools – and cinemas – of the time. It is my strong autodidactic streak and my faith in my own work that have kept me going for more than forty years.

    A pianist is made in childhood; a filmmaker at any age. I say this only because physically, in order to play the piano well, the body needs to be conditioned from a very early age. Real musicians have an innate feel for all music and all instruments, something that can be instilled only at an early age. Of course, it is possible to learn to play the piano as an adult, but the intuitive qualities needed will not be there. As a young filmmaker, I read in an encyclopedia the fifteen or so pages on filmmaking. Everything I needed to get myself started came from this book. It has always seemed to me that almost everything you are forced to learn at school you forget in a couple of years. But the things you set out to learn yourself in order to quench a thirst, these are the things you never forget. It was a vital early lesson for me, realizing that the knowledge gleaned from a book would suffice for my first week on a set, which is all the time needed to learn everything you need to know as a filmmaker. To this day the technical knowledge I have is relatively rudimentary. If there are things that seem too complicated, I experiment; if I am still not able to master it I hire a technician.

    PC: You’ve talked in the past about how collaborative film is, and how many different and varied skills it requires.

    WH: Filmmaking is a more vulnerable journey than most other creative ventures. When you are a sculptor you have only one obstacle – a lump of rock – on which you chisel away. But filmmaking involves organization and money and technology, things like that. You might get the best shot of your life but if the lab mixes the developing solution wrongly then your shot is gone forever. You can build a ship, cast 5,000 extras and plan a scene with your leading actors, and in the morning one of them has a stomach ache and cannot go on set. These things happen; everything is interwoven and interlinked, and if one element does not function properly then the whole venture is prone to collapse. Filmmakers should be taught about how things will go wrong, about how to deal with these problems, how to handle a crew that is getting out of hand, how to handle a producing partner who will not pay up or a distributor who won’t advertise properly, things like this. People who keep moaning about these kinds of problems are not really suited to this kind of business.

    And, vitally, aspiring filmmakers have to be taught that sometimes the only way to overcome problems involves real physicality. Many great filmmakers have been astonishingly physical, athletic people. A much higher percentage than writers or musicians. Actually, for some time now I have given some thought to opening a film school. But if I did start one up you would only be allowed to fill out an application form after you have traveled alone on foot, let’s say from Madrid to Kiev, a distance of about 5,000 kilometers. While walking, write. Write about your experiences and give me your notebooks. I would be able to tell who had really walked the distance and who had not. While you are walking you would learn much more about filmmaking than if you were in a classroom. During your voyage you will learn more about what your future holds than in five years at film school. Your experiences would be the very opposite of academic knowledge, for academia is the death of cinema. It is the very opposite of passion.

    PC: Tell me about your ideal film school.

    WH:This is something we can talk about later when we discuss Film Lessons, the programmes I made for Austrian television, but let me say here that there are some very basic skills that any filmmaker must have. First of all, learn languages. One also needs to be able to type and drive a car. It is like the knights of old who had to be able to ride, wield a sword and play the lute. At my utopian film academy I would have students do athletic things with real physical contact, like boxing, something that would teach them to be unafraid. I would have a loft with a lot of space where in one corner there would be a boxing ring. Students would train every evening from 8 to 10 with a boxing instructor: sparring, somersaults (backwards and forwards), juggling, magic card tricks. Whether or not you would be a filmmaker by the end I do not know, but at least you would come out as an athlete. My film school would allow young people who want to make films to experience a certain climate of excitement of the mind. This is what ultimately creates films and nothing else. It is not technicians that film schools should be producing, but people with a real agitation of mind. People with spirit, with a burning flame within them.

  • 25 Oct

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    The Films of John Carpenter: The Thing (1982)

    9

    John Carpenter’s The Thing is one hell of a monster movie. Filled with fantastic special effects, it was a film that Carpenter himself was very proud of (“I love the movie a great deal. It’s my favorite film of my own”). Unfortunately, it also had the misfortune of opening two weeks after Steven Spielberg’s box-office juggernaut, E.T., a movie with a message that was essentially the polar opposite of The Thing’s. As a result, Carpenter and company failed to make a splash at the U.S. box office, a reality which would greatly impact the director’s career from that point forward. For the first time ever, studio chiefs began to equate John Carpenter with box office poison.

    More a re-telling of John W. Campbell’s short story, “Who Goes There”, than a remake of the 1951 Howard Hawks-produced film, The Thing is set in the Antarctic, where twelve guys manning an American Research Station are preparing for the hard winter ahead. Their preparations are temporarily interrupted by the arrival of a stray dog, one that, as it turns out, is actually an alien creature in the “shape” of a dog. Helicopter pilot MacReady (Kurt Russell) destroys the alien with a flamethrower, but as the men soon realize, this isn’t the end of their problems. The creature, which is able to assume the appearance of any living being it comes in contact with, may have ‘infected’ members of the crew as well, meaning that some of the twelve may not be who they appear to be. With such a possibility hanging over their heads, tensions rise and suspicions mount. In order to survive the ordeal, however, these men have no choice but to band together to locate the traitor (or traitors) amongst them. Failure to do so will result not only in their destruction, but the possible end of mankind as well.

    Yes, The Thing is a very tense film, and perhaps one of its most interesting aspects is that this tension seems to have existed well before the alien ever made its way to the camp. Carpenter gives shape to his characters right from the get-go, and we in the audience are given the distinct impression that we’re watching twelve guys ready to jump down each other’s throats at a moment’s notice. When we’re first introduced to MacReady, he’s playing a video chess game against the computer, a game he eventually loses. Far from taking his defeat gracefully, MacReady reacts by pouring his drink into the computer’s monitor. Discipline among the men has also broken down by the time the danger arrives; Nauls (T.K. Carter) plays his music way too loud, and Garry (Donald Moffat) smokes his pot right out in the open. The combination of harsh weather and isolation has already taken its toll on these men. Throwing an alien into the mix only intensifies the situation. Add the fact that any one of them could also be that alien, and you have a time bomb set to blow at any minute.

    The alien creature itself, in all its manifestations, was superbly crafted, and is easily the film’s strongest point. In its first appearance as the dog, where it transforms into a bloody mess of goo right before our eyes, we’re given a taste of just how creepy this intruder can be. Yet it’s only the beginning. Once the alien starts assuming the shape of the crew, it becomes all the more terrifying. So ground-breaking were the make-up and special effects in The Thing that they received special mention in the book, Defining Moments in Movies (published in 2007 by Cassell Illustrated), which states ”Requiring the services of 34 special makeup effects staffers, among them luminaries like Rob Bottin and Stan Winston, The Thing towers above all other entries in the field of bubbling flesh”.

    Yet despite the film’s innovative special effects, coupled with the fact they were presented within a story that effectively creeps the hell out of us, The Thing was ultimately a box-office failure. “I thought at the time”, Carpenter says, “and I still think now, that I had made a very powerful, very scary, very strong monster movie”. Unfortunately, as he would also come to realize, this wasn’t enough to guarantee success. “One of the things I learned when I got to be a professional”, he continues, “is that, no matter how much you put into it and no matter how great you think it is, you are going to be competing with the other movies that are released at exactly the same time. E.T. came out ahead of us and was this huge, sensational hit, and its message was the exact opposite of The Thing”. As a result, Carpenter’s now-heralded Sci-Fi / Horror classic was received with indifference by the movie-going public of 1982.

    Carpenter was deeply troubled by the failure of The Thing, yet feels he also took something away from the whole experience. “I don’t think I ever made a more savage film or as bleak a movie as The Thing since. And I think I probably won’t because I don’t think the audience, especially the audience out there now, wants to see that”. He became painfully aware of just how audiences react during a test screening of The Thing that he himself attended. While talking with the audience afterwards, Carpenter was questioned by a teenage girl, who was confused by the film’s ending. Carpenter replied that the climax was left purposefully ambiguous because he wanted the audience to use their imagination. “Oh God, I hate that”, was the girl’s reply.

    It was at that moment, Carpenter said, that he knew he was doomed.

    .
    .

  • 18 Oct

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    Hidden Treasures – Week of Oct. 19th

    2

    Here’s the latest installment of Hidden Treasures.

    (click on MORE below to view clips / trailers from this week’s films)

    Pretty Poison (1968)
    Movies often use fantasy to create a world for their audience. Pretty Poison does the opposite; displaying, in no uncertain terms, how little time the real world has for make-believe. In fact, there are some fantasies that can lead straight to disaster.

    Dennis Pitt (Anthony Perkins) has just been released from a mental institution. Looking to start anew, he attracts the attention of Sue Ann (Tuesday Weld), a High School cheerleader with an outgoing personality. By lying to Sue Ann and telling her that he’s a CIA operative, Dennis is able to win over the young girl. Unfortunately, Sue Ann isn’t quite as naive as she first appeared, and Dennis may just be heading for more trouble than he’s ever known before.

    Anthony Perkins is quite good as Dennis, the inmate who believed he was ready to face the world again, but it’s Tuesday Weld who steals the show, giving us a seemingly average girl who harbors some very abnormal thoughts. At first, Dennis seems to have won her over, claiming to live a life of excitement in the CIA, and even asking Sue Ann to assist him on his most recent ‘case’. It isn’t long before events spiral out of Dennis’ control, only to be scooped up by the deceptively innocent Sue Ann. The relationship may have started on Dennis’ terms, but it will be Sue Ann who ultimately pulls all the strings.

    Dennis’ case worker, Morton Azenauer (played by John Randolph), had advised Dennis, before his release, that he was going out into a world that had little time for fantasy. In the end, it was advice that Dennis wished he’d followed.

    Suddenly (1954)
    In the pre-title sequence of director Lewis Allen’s Film-Noir thriller, Suddenly, a traveler (Roy Engel) pulls his car up next to a police officer (Paul Wexler) to ask for directions. Before long, the man asks the officer the name of the town they’re in, to which the officer replies “Suddenly”. It’s a strange name, to be sure, one that dates back to the era of the gold rush, when things apparently happened pretty quickly around those parts. Nowadays, it’s a lot quieter, and the officer jokes that they’re thinking of changing the town’s name to ‘Gradually’. This light moment of comedy is immediately followed by the film’s opening credits, where the dramatic score of David Raskin gives us the sneaky suspicion that old times are about to return to Suddenly, and in a big, big way.

    Suddenly’s Sheriff, Tod Shaw (Sterling Hayden), has just received word that U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower, traveling by train to the west coast, plans to make a brief stopover in his town at 5 o’clock that very afternoon. All at once, the Secret Service descends on Suddenly, where they team up with Shaw and his deputies to check on reports of a possible attempt on the President’s life. Unbeknownst to them all, the danger is already in town: a team of three hit men, the leader of which is an army veteran named John Baron (Frank Sinatra), have invaded a small house overlooking the train depot, holding the family that resides there hostage until they’ve had a chance to carry out their murderous plan.

    The film’s title, Suddenly, proves to be much more than the name of the town where the action takes place; it’s a foretelling of how events will unfold in this fast-paced thriller. With a brisk running time of just 75 minutes, Suddenly is quick and to the point, with thrilling twists and turns anchored by the strong performances of Sterling Hayden and Frank Sinatra. Sinatra is especially effective, playing a former army assassin with deep-seated resentments that have driven him to despair. In a gripping scene, Sheriff Shaw, accompanied by Dan Carney (Willis Bouchey), the head of the Secret Service team, pays a visit to the house where Baron and his men have set up to carry out the assassination. Soon after the Sheriff’s arrival, gunfire erupts. Once the smoke clears, Carney is dead and a wounded Shaw is Baron’s prisoner. From there out, the hostility mounts as Shaw begins to work on Baron, quickly uncovering the would-be assassin’s primary weakness: his talkative nature. Shaw listens as Baron brags of having killed 27 Germans in World War II, a feat that earned him the Silver Star, and of how his return to civilian life has left him confused and unsatisfied. Shaw plays on these feelings, pushing the killer closer and closer to the edge, all the while realizing that Baron’s fragile psyche could crack without a moment’s notice. The give and take between the two, which grows more intense as five o’clock approaches, is almost as nerve-racking as the story itself.

    Suddenly opens amidst the lackadaisical events of Middle America, and ends with a violence that swoops down quickly, like a hawk striking at its prey. An account of small-town life thrown into chaos by politics and murder, Suddenly is exhilarating to the point of exhaustion.

    Local Hero (1983)
    And now, we come to a movie that I absolutely adore; Bill Forsyth’s criminally underrated 1983 comedy, Local Hero. More than just a wonderful film, Local Hero is a life-affirming experience. No matter what mood I’m when this movie begins, I’m always left smiling at the end.

    Mac (Peter Riegert) is a junior executive with Knox Oil and Gas, a large petroleum company headquartered in Houston, Texas. Knox is planning to build a new refinery off the coast of Scotland, and Mac, an expert at closing deals, is assigned to the project. So, it’s off to Ferness, a remote Scottish fishing village, where he hopes to reach an agreement with the locals to buy up their entire town. Upon his arrival in Scotland, he meets Danny Oldsen (Peter Capaldi), an employee of Knox in Abberdine, and together, Mac and Danny descend on the small coastal community, bracing themselves for what they believe will be some pretty tough negotiations. However, while dealing with local representative Gordon Urquhart (Denis Lawson), Mac and Danny come to realize that these simple folks are in fact all too eager to sell, delighted by the thought that they may soon be stinking rich.

    What I love most about Local Hero is that it is essentially the story of a man who has lost his way. Before his trip to Ferness, Mac was completely caught up in his modern existence. His job as a negotiator for Knox rarely gave him cause to travel outside of Houston, so Mac would simply close a deal in one afternoon with a few telephone calls. He never wandered far from his desk, and would even communicate with co-workers by way of the telephone (even those who sat only a few feet away). His world was quick, convenient, and completely impersonal.

    But as Mac soon discovers, life moves pretty slowly in Ferness, which provides him with a lot more free time than he’s used to. As he waits for Urquhart to finalize the deal, Mac whittles away the hours by strolling on the beach. At first, these strolls resemble power walks, with Mac never really taking the time to look out at the water. After several days, however, he finally notices the sea, and realizes that it is beautiful. He then looks to the sky, amazed at the brilliant light show of the Aurora Borealis. For the first time in a long time, Mac is noticing things; he is mingling face-to-face with real people, and discovering that doing so can be a genuinely enjoyable experience. At one point, he even takes an afternoon off to collect seashells on the beach, an event that leads to one of the film’s most memorable images; as Mac is crawling along the rocks hunting for shells, he removes his expensive watch, the one that sounds an alarm whenever it’s conference time in Houston, and places it on the ground next to him. Before long, Mac has become so preoccupied with his shells that he completely forgets about this watch. The last we see of it, it’s submerged in water, and the alarm is sounding in a faded, muffled tone. Conference time in Houston, and Mac couldn’t care less.

    Local Hero is a first-hand account of Mac’s spiritual transformation, and I, for one, fully believed this tale of one man’s conversion from active player to passive observer, mostly because, in the end, I, too, fell in love with the town of Ferness. It’s a love I renew each and every time I watch this marvelous film.

    (click on MORE below to view clips / trailers from this week’s films)

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  • 27 Sep

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    Hidden Treasures – Week of Sept. 28th

    3

    Here’s the latest installment of Hidden Treasures.

    (click on MORE below to view clips / trailers from this week’s films)

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    Reap the Wild Wind (1942)
    One of early Hollywood’s most influential personalities, Cecil B. DeMille was renowned for making “big” movies, which boasted larger than life stories and casts grand enough to support them. Initially, one might be reluctant to place his 1942 adventure Reap the Wild Wind in the same category as the great director’s other works, yet I believe it is a movie as ambitious in scale as any of DeMille’s more popular epics, and certainly deserves a place among his most exciting tales.

    In 1840, the business of America was conducted by sea, and the waters surrounding the Florida Keys were among the most traveled in the country. Along with the merchants, the area also had its fair share of pirates and profiteers, men who found quick riches in the salvage of ships lost at sea. Loxi Claiborne (Paulette Goddard), a Captain of her own salvage ship, rescues Capt. Jack Stuart (John Wayne) and his crew, whose vessel has struck a reef. While Loxi is busy rescuing the crew, the areas most notorious profiteers, the Cutter Brothers (Raymond Massey and Robert Preston), make off with Stuart’s cargo. To end the tyranny of the Cutters, Stuart must team up with Steve Tolliver (Ray Milland), the second in command of the shipping company for which they both work, a partnership that is complicated by the fact that both Stuart and Tolliver are in love with Loxi..

    If you’re looking for excitement, then Reap The Wild Wind will surely give you your fill. The film starts strongly, with the extremely tense shipwreck described above, and continues at a similar pace throughout, culminating in a nail-biting underwater battle with a giant squid. The many scenes at sea are especially thrilling, with DeMille showcasing his flair for both action and high drama every chance he gets. In true Cecil B. DeMille style, Reap the Wild Wind is a good, old-fashioned Hollywood spectacle.

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    Quest For Fire (1981)
    A good movie draws its audience into the world it creates. The fact that Quest for Fire achieves this does not in itself make it a unique motion picture; the fact that it’s set eighty thousand years in the past, recreating a time and place when mankind was unable to communicate verbally, does. I admit that I was skeptical going into this film, wondering how director Jean Jacques Annaud could possibly pull off a narrative story set in so primitive an environment. Would I even be able to follow what was going on? Well, not only did Quest for Fire keep me in tune with its story, it did so in a manner that was awe-inspiring. Quest for Fire is a remarkable achievement; a film to watch in stunned silence.

    Quest for Fire is the story of a prehistoric tribe that, like all others, needs fire in order to survive. When their only source of fire is accidentally extinguished, three members of the tribe; Naoh (Everett McGill), Amoukar (Ron Perlman) and Gaw (Nameer El-Kadi), set out on a quest to bring back more. On their journey, which is both perilous and fascinating, the three meet up with a strange woman named Ika (Rae Dawn Chong), a member of an advanced tribe that has mastered a way to make fire, just one of the many mysteries of life Ika introduces to her three new companions.

    The most basic of human emotions, such as fear, anger and desire, which have their roots in man’s most primitive past, are captured quite effectively in Quest for Fire, yet there are much deeper feelings at play here as well. In unison with the primordial, Quest for Fire also sets out to give us a glimpse into the beginnings of mankind as a sentient being, aware of his own possibilities. There’s even one scene where we witness what is best described as a very early occurrence of self-defined morality. After days of going without food, Naoh, Amoukar and Gaw stumble upon the remains of another tribe’s feast, and begin gnawing at the bones left behind. Suddenly, Naoh lifts up a human skull, and the three realize the meal they’re enjoying is the leftovers of cannibals. Upon this discovery, Amoukar spits the food onto the ground in disgust. In that moment, the primitive feeling of hunger is overtaken by a more personal judgment of what is right and what is wrong. Obviously the other tribe had no qualms about eating human flesh, thus laying out for us what is perhaps the earliest example of societal mores. In moments such as these, which includes the exploration of love in a monogamous form, Quest for Fire takes on a deeper purpose than a simple tale of our primitive ancestor’s fight for survival; it gives us mankind at a crossroads, revealing the emotional and social struggles that will hamper humanity’s existence for thousands of years to come.

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    In The Mood For Love (2000)

    “Out of our quarrels with others we make rhetoric. Out of our quarrels with ourselves we make poetry.” – William Butler Yeats

    Lost love can be devastating, but not nearly as distressing as true love left unexplored. In The Mood For Love examines two people who have lost loves, yet in each other find consolation, reassurance, and, eventually, much deeper feelings, feelings that their personal moralities prevent them from acting upon. They have doubly suffered; first losing love, and then failing to grasp it when it was again within reach. While exploring turbulent emotions, In The Mood For Love is simultaneously heartbreaking and poetic, flowing as smoothly as a sonata composed by a maestro.

    Mrs. Chan (Maggie Cheung) is renting a room in an apartment building in 1960’s Hong Kong. Her husband is often away on business, so she spends a lot of time by herself. Renting a room in the apartment right next door is Mr. Chow (Tony Leung Chiu Wai). Mr. Chow also spends a lot of time alone, as his wife frequently works late hours. Soon, each one begins to suspect that their absentee spouses are having an affair, and upon comparing stories and situations, learn that the ‘other woman’ sharing Mr. Chan’s bed is none other than Mr. Chow’s wife.

    From this simple story, In The Mood For Love develops a complex emotional tale of how convention and ethics can give way to loneliness and betrayal. Wong Kar-Wai, whom I consider to be one of the most dynamic directors working today, enjoys dabbling in themes of lost love. His earlier film, Chungking Express (a movie I adore), follows two separate stories of failed romance. With In The Mood For Love, he brings two injured parties together, yet does not follow the standard plot line by having them become romantically involved (at least not on a physical level). In unison with this fascinating tale of unrequited love, the cinematic style of the film is quite impressive. To artistically capture the exquisite settings and costume design (which perfectly present the look and feel of 1960’s Hong Kong), Wong Kar-Wai employs a manner of photography that comes across as lyrical, almost trance-like. As the scorned duo make their way through the lonely Hong-Kong streets, the director follows their movements via a very fluidic slow-motion, as if they are walking along in a dream state. These slow-motion shots, aside from stylistically enhancing the film, also work towards developing the characters of Mrs. Chan and Mr. Chow. As the world around them passes by, they are either unable or unwilling to keep up with it.

    (click on MORE below to view clips / trailers from this week’s films)
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