Monday, December 2, 2002

November = Movie Month, Part Two

There have been a lot of movies this month, after a very long spell of not going at all. As I think I mentioned before, it may have been The Fellowship of the Ring (can even one possibly redeeming thing be hoped for from The Two Towers? I doubt it), or maybe our subscribing to NetFlix--enjoyable at first, but then overwhelming, though we haven't cancelled yet. At any rate, we're back to the theaters, and with a lot of interesting things coming up in the future (Almodovar's Talk to Her, Adaptation, About Schmidt) we may even go regularly in the future).

As for what we have seen:

Femme Fatale may be one of the most glorious visual experiences I've ever had in a movie. For the first half hour all I did was watch. I didn't pay much attention to the characters (what few there are) or the story (what little there is). I just revelled in the sheer visual glory of it all. To call it an exercise in style would, I think, diminish it. This is a director who is simply bathing himself in color, rhythm, movement, texture, and music (a gorgeously effective "Bolero"-based soundtrack by Ryuichi Sakamoto). In fact, DePalma seems more interested in maintaining that languorous vision than in anything else here. There's no attempt at a message in this movie, no attempt to shock or to dredge up primal fears. All of DePalma's usual themes are here--voyeurism, multiple points of view, the witnessing of horrible events beyond the viewer's control--but they're muted, elements of the overall texture, not the center of things. And just to prove that he isn't interested in offending or shocking anyone, DePalma even gives the movie a happy ending--which, in a DePalma movie, means that only the really evil characters die horrible, incongruous, bloody deaths. DePalma has definitely softened over the last few years. The underrated Mission to Mars (well, underrated doesn't quite describe the critical reaction--excoriated may be closer) was full of uplift, and even movies like Snake Eyes and Carlito's Way lacked the jagged emotional tension of DePalma's earlier movies. Maybe it's time for him to make another comedy. Of course, he probably thinks Femme Fatale is a comedy. And he's probably right.

I'm not sure what it was about Die Another Day that made me think of Roxanne. Possibly it was the Bond movies' ostentateous idea of style and sophisitcation and wit, compared to the real thing as presented by Steve Martin. I wanted to clear all those tuxedoes and forty-year old (and probably undrinkable) bottles of champagne and attempts at witty repartee out of my head and insert some real grace and humor and, God help us, intelligence. Die Another Day isn't bad for a Bond movie (do we really go in expecting much from a Bond movie, anyway?), though most of the wit is in Toby Stephens' facial expressions. Halle Berry and Rosamund Pike are beautiful, of course; Judi Dench lends it some real class; and John Cleese gives it some real comedy (he also gets the movie's best line). But I still think Pierce Brosnan is only a minor step up from Roger Moore, and, needless to say, a considerable step down from Sean Connery. Which brings me to my real point: why doesn't Steve Martin make a Bond movie? Or at least a parody Bond movie, of which there hasn't been one for years (Austin Powers doesn't count as parody, it's a spoof, and more closely related to the Matt Helm movies or even the Batman TV series than Bond). Think how great Martin would look in a tux. And unlike Brosnan, he knows how to look both sophisticated and relaxed. And for support, let's bring in all those great female actresses who haven't gotten their due: Kathleen Turner as the villainess, Deborah Winger as M (or vice versa), and Diane Lane as the high kicking love interest. Maybe Michelle Pfeiffer, if we can tear her away from those do-goody movies she's been making, as a double agent, and Jennifer Jason Leigh (who really needs to lighten up) as Moneypenny. And we'll throw Maggie Smith or Vanessa Redgrave (as evil sisters?) in their somewhere, just for fun. Hey, maybe we can get DePalma to direct it.

As for the Kurosawa/Mifune fest, I keep thinking of Pauline Kael's warning, in the recently published Afterglow, a transcript of an interview given a year or so before she died, of the dangers of seeing all of a director's movies at once. What Kael warns about is repetition, but there's also the fact that certain weaknesses can come leaping out at you that you wouldn't have noticed before. It never would have occured to me to describe Kurosawa's films as sentimental, but many of them are, and there's also a tendency to preach, to have characters blandly assert the message of the movie in terms that run the risk of making the whole thing seem no more than an object lesson. The framing device of Rashomon would have destroyed a weaker story, and the entirety of Red Beard sinks in a gooey mire of good intentions. That's one of the main faults of I Live in Fear, which JSW missed. The story of an old man who develops a compulsive paranoia regarding the atomic bomb and tries to force his family to move to Brazil, the movie isn't as messagey as you fear, but it doesn't work, either. Part of the problem is Mifune's performance as the old man: technically, he does a marvellous job of doubling his age (he was 35 when the movie was made), but the strain of that seems to have made it impossible for him to do anything else--there's no development in the character, you never really get a sense of the man's slow descent from simple anxiety and paranoia into a deeper, more overwhelming madness. There is one amazing sequence, however: at the end, insanity takes over, and the old man becomes convinced that he's escaped the nuclear holocaust by moving to another planet--when he's sees the sunset from his sanitarium window, he takes it for the earth, enveloped in atomic fire.

As a final note, it really should have been called the Kurosawa/Mifune/Shimura festival. Takashi Shimura is in almost every movie (he made 47 films with Mifune over his career), usually as the voice of conscience. It's a role he's well suited for, though it doesn't always fit the movie itself.

Posted by rjm @ 01:14 PM PST [Link] [110 comments]

November = Movie Month

Following months of not seeing any movies at all, it seems we did little else in November. The glut started with a Kurosawa/Mifune festival at the Varsity in the U District and ended yesterday (which was technically December, but we talked about seeing this movie all through November) with Brian de Palma's most recent wet dream Femme Fatale. Due to travels and work, I had to miss several of the Kurosawa films: I Live in Fear, Yojimbo, Sanjuro, and Seven Samurai. We've got the Criterion DVDs of Yojimbo, Sanjuro, and Seven Samurai, and honestly the seats at the Varsity aren't comfortable enough to sit through a 3 hour movie, so I wasn't too fussed with missing these. RJM saw I Live in Fear though, and I was sorry to miss that one. Of all those I did see, Stray Dog and Rashomon stand out as the least sentimental. Kurosawa's retelling of Macbeth, Throne of Blood was stunning, but Mifune's death scene went on far too long. I know that most folks die of infection vs. multiple arrow wounds, but it was hard not to giggle obnoxiously during the barrage. The contrast of Mifune's scruffy samurai portrayals with the clean shaven modern characters he plays in Stray Dog, Drunken Angel, and The Bad Sleep Well was astounding. And, my! is he ever fit! Hidden Fortress, a wonderful film and obvious influence on Star Wars, was my favorite of the lot simply because it was the most fun. Not too much preachiness, and the hapless "warriors" (models for R2D2 and C3PO) were marvelously silly in their predicaments and greed.

We saw the new Bond movie Die Another Day at the Neptune, post-Thanksgiving. What dreadful, unsophisticated pickup lines! What cheesy double-entendres! What loud explosions! What marvelous toys! All in all, a very typical Bond film. Judy Dench played a very clench-jawed, calculating M and John Cleese a quite exasperated Q. The opening sequence, a montage of Bond's torture by scorpions and other nastiness, was well done. The villians were despicable and the women all taut and beautiful. I agree with David Edelstein about the "surfing off the glacier" scene and the utterly predictable car chase through the melting ice palace. Small homages to past Bond movies are scattered throughout, all easily spotted. Quite a show, undemanding, and mindlessly entertaining.

After the Bond flick, RJM wanted to see Roxanne with Steve Martin and Daryl Hannah which I had not seen. What a sweet little movie - everything turns out as it should. Steve Martin's amazing physical comedy is such a joy to watch.

And finally, yesterday afternoon we caught Femme Fatale at the Uptown, before it disappeared from the big screen. My initial comment at the end: "like Sliding Doors meets David Lynch". Calling it a wet dream is only too accurate, by the way - images of water pouring and overflowing abound, from bathtubs to fish tanks to subtle bottles of Evian. The light in this movie is achingly beautiful, and the camera lingers and meanders, giving us the opportunity to relax into the lushness of it. The plot, while not at all shocking or innovative, had enough twists and interest. Rebecca Romijn-Stamos is a much better model than actor (god help her if she ever has a role with actual dialogue or emotion required), and lastly, whoever proofed the subtitles should have their credentials taken away.

In all, I saw the following movies in November:

• Throne of Blood
  
• Hidden Fortress
  
• Stray Dog
  
• Drunken Angel
  
• Red Beard
  
• The Bad Sleep Well
  
• Rashomon
  
• High and Low
  
• Die Another Day
  
• Roxanne
  
• Femme Fatale
  

Posted by jsw @ 09:55 AM PST [Link] [41 comments]

Wednesday, October 30, 2002

We don't actually go to movies much. Or at least we haven't. Maybe because the last couple of movies we saw (The Fellowship of the Ring, something else I can't even remember now) were so bad. Or maybe we just haven't felt like going out much. We'll think of some more profound reason later.

Posted by rjm @ 08:25 PM PST [Link] [103 comments]